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Bird disease 'like wildfire'
09/02/2006 14:01 - (SA)
Nigeria - As Nigeria scrambled to deal with Africa's first confirmed case of deadly bird flu, a farmer's representative said on Thursday thousands of poultry had died of disease further north.
Identified earlier this week as "fowl cholera", the disease was spreading rapidly through farms in Kano State, killing tens of thousands of chickens, Auwalu Haruna, secretary of the Kano State poultry farmers' association, said.
Nigeria announced on Wednesday that Africa's first confirmed case of the H5N1 strain of bird flu - which can be fatal to humans - had been found in Sambawa Farm in Kaduna State, 300km north of Abuja.
The disease in Kano "is spreading like wildfire," Haruna told AFP.
"We have 20 000 new infections reported today, bringing the figure for infected birds to 80 000. What worsens the situation is the movement of infected poultry, in a frantic effort to minimise losses," he said.
Haruna and several market stall holders told AFP that once chickens are infected farmers are killing them and rapidly dumping them on the market in an effort to beat any future quarantine and make a quick profit.
"The announcement by the federal government of bird flu at Sambawa Farm shocked us, but we are just waiting for confirmation from the veterinary institute in Vom for our birds," Haruna said.
Prices of chickens in Kano have dropped by two thirds since thousands of birds began dying of the mystery infection.
International experts from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation were expected to arrive in Nigeria on Thursday following the news of the bird flu outbreak.
Nigeria's Agriculture Minister Adamu Bello promised on Wednesday that a massive effort to quarantine farms and cull sick birds would be rapidly put into place to contain the outbreak, but there was no sign of that on the ground.
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