Nigeria counts bird flu costs
2006-02-19 19:09
Kano - UN health officials Sunday inspected a bird flu-hit farm and assessed clean-up operations in Nigeria as experts said Africa's first avian influenza epidemic had already battered the economy.
A team of World Health Organisation (WHO) experts went through the Bakabo Farm on the outskirts of the northern city of Kano, one of the epicentres of the outbreak, with local monitors to check the health of farm workers.
Team leader Koumare Brehima told AFP that the workers appeared to be in no danger at the farm, where 1 100 chickens had died or were slaughtered as a precautionary measure.
"However, we are taking their records and we will keep monitoring them for two weeks. This is because the incubation period of bird flu is seven days and its symptoms commence after two weeks," Brehima said.
The WHO officials also discussed clean-up operations in Kano state with local monitors appointed by the government.
Meanwhile, Emmanuel Ijewere, one of Nigeria's bigger poultry farmers and a former president of the Nigerian Red Cross, said the cost of the bird flu to the economy could be as steep as 50bn naira ($381m, €304m).
"In my farm, about 5 000 to 6 000 chickens are slaughtered every day, and I represent less than 0.5% of the chickens bred in Nigeria," he told AFP.
"In these last few days, my losses alone would be between four to five million naira, and 400 people who work for me are out of their jobs," said Ijewere, who also headed Nigeria's association of chartered accountants.
"So nationwide, the impact could well be around 50bn naira," he said.
Oyedele Oyediji, president of the Animal Science Association of Nigeria, gave the same estimate.
He told The Guardian newspaper that apart from the dead birds, one also had to take into account "the ripple effects to producers of grains, cereals and oil seeds and vegetable oils."
Oyediji said some 40 million Nigerians depended on the sector, working as poultry farmers, grain suppliers, transporters, cage and poultry equipment manufacturers, engineers, veterinarians and egg retailers.
The Poultry Association of Nigeria on Sunday sought to reassure the public, placing full-page advertisements in newspapers which stressed that no human cases had surfaced so far.
"There is no harm of any sort in the consumption of cooked poultry products and eggs from farms in areas currently experiencing outbreaks," it said, adding: "There is no cause to panic."
Nigeria, the first country in Africa where the deadly H5N1 strain of avian influenza was detected, on Saturday finally paid heed to UN warnings and banned the movement of poultry.
Despite criticism that the government's action had been slow and insufficient, Nigerian officials voiced optimism for the first time over the weekend that the crisis was becoming manageable.
- SAPA