Nigeria runs new bird flu tests
2007-01-30 12:50
Abuja - A laboratory in Nigeria was running new bird flu tests on Tuesday on samples from 14 people after earlier checks produced inconclusive results, said a World Health Organisation (WHO) doctor.
The samples were from three people who died after suffering flu-like symptoms and from 11 others who came into contact with them. Nigeria was the first African country to detect bird flu in poultry, but it had not had a confirmed human case.
David Olaleye, who was taking part in the testing at a laboratory in the capital, Abuja, said: "The tests we ran yesterday produced inconsistent results."
Olaleye said two initial rounds of tests over the weekend had proved negative, but results from Monday's third round of tests had produced a pattern that was "unreliable" and didn't allow him to make a clear call on the outcome.
Complete new set of tests
He said: "That is why we have pulled out a fresh batch of samples from the same people and we have started a completely new set of tests."
Gregory Hartl, a spokesperson at the WHO's headquarters in Geneva, said tests carried out in a laboratory in Nigeria on Saturday and Sunday had been "consistent" in showing no bird flu virus. He added: "That is already a good sign."
Hartl said further tests would be conducted at the WHO's Collaborating Centre for influenza in London. He said: "The samples are being sent today from Nigeria. We won't know for a few days."
The three people who died were a mother and daughter from Lagos in the southwest and a woman from remote Taraba state in the east.
The H5N1 strain of bird flu remained primarily an animal disease, but it could kill people who came into close contact with infected birds.
It had killed 164 people around the globe since 2003 and experts feared it could spark a deadly pandemic if it mutated into a form that passed easily from person to person.
Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, detected bird flu in chicken in northern Kaduna state a year ago. The virus had since spread to 17 of Nigeria's 36 states despite measures such as culling, quarantine and bans on transporting live poultry.