Nigeria tests children for H5N1
2006-02-12 16:48
Kano - Nigerian doctors tested blood samples on Sunday from two sick children suspected of carrying Africa's first human cases of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu, amid fears of a health catastrophe.
And, as international experts continued to arrive in the country in the wake of the discovery last week of Africa's first bird flu outbreak, Nigeria announced tougher controls to prevent the spread of the epidemic.
It may, however, be too late for two youngsters who fell sick last week on a poultry farm in the northern city of Kaduna, a short distance from a second farm which was quarantined after 45 000 poultry died from the disease.
"We've taken their samples, which are now undergoing some laboratory tests," said Nasidi Yakubu, a director from the federal health ministry deployed to northern Nigeria to monitor Africa's first outbreak of the disease.
Last week, Kaduna State officials told AFP that two children whose father bred turkeys, geese and chickens close to Sambawa Farm, which was the scene of Nigeria's first confirmed outbreak, had fallen ill and begun coughing up blood.
If they are confirmed as having been infected with H5N1 avian influenza, they will become the first African victims of what international health experts fear could develop into a widespread epidemic in Nigeria and beyond.
Bird flu has killed about 90 people since 2003, mainly in Asia, and has recently spread to Turkey, Europe and Africa.
Yakubu said the federal ministry is working closely with the World Health Organisation (WHO) to contain the outbreak, and had ordered emergency measures in Kaduna State, where the first African case was confirmed on Wednesday.
"We have ordered the disinfection of all chicken selling points and also the movement of birds of any kind into and out of the state has been banned," he told AFP by telephone from Kaduna city.
Nigeria's federal health ministry has promised to pay 250 naira (less than $2) for each bird slaughtered.
Since Wednesday's announcement of bird flu in Kaduna, officials have confirmed outbreaks in Kano and Plateau states and have said they are analysing suspect samples from birds which died in Katsina and Yobe.
And, while only four farms have been formally identified as infected, local health and agricultural officials say that dozens more have reported sudden deaths among their birds.
The H5N1 strain of bird flu can pass from birds to humans, usually people such as farmers or poultry traders in direct contact with live animals.