Bird flu spreading in Nigeria
2006-02-17 14:32
Kano - Nigerian officials on Friday said a deadly strain of bird flu had been detected on another farm and health officials pressed on with mass poultry culling in the ravaged north to prevent the disease from claiming human lives.
Ali Hussani Dutsin-Mad, the top health bureaucrat in Katsina, said the deadly strain of the H5N1 virus that could kill humans had been detected in a second farm near the state capital.
He said: "The poultry farm had 1 000 chickens out of which 300 died of the infection. We culled 700 chickens ... the farm has been closed down and the whole area disinfected."
Kabiru Ali, the top agriculture official of the nearby state of Jigawa - where a suspected outbreak of bird flu was reported - said there would be mass culling as a precautionary measure.
Federal administration
He said: "We have ordered for the killing of all chickens in the area, where the outbreak has been reported."
However, Ali said the planned 250 naira (less than two dollars) compensation to be paid by the federal government for every chicken killed was not enough and said the federal administration would hike the sum.
Nigeria's top veterinary expert Dr Lami Lombin said monitors and experts had fanned out across the sprawling country of 36 states, where bird flu had been confirmed in five northern ones.
She said: "We are going round the country for screening to ensure consumer confidence", adding that President Olusegun Obasanjo's farm had also been checked on Thursday.
Obasanjo owns poultry farm
She said: "The president's farm is not exempted. In this situation no one is exempted. We take sample of the birds for testing."
Daniel Atsu, managing director of Obasanjo Holdings Ltd, said the president's poultry farm with one million chickens and a staff of 4 000 was among the country's seven largest.
He said: "We on the farm know that everything is okay. But, there must be a proof that can show to people eating our chickens that they are safe."
Meanwhile, Helder Muteia, the country head of the Food and Agriculture Organisation said the body was trying to trace how the virus entered Nigeria.
Fraudulent importations of birds
He said that while there could be several possibilities, the two most probable ways were that "either the virus came with migratory birds, or it was fraudulent importations of birds from Asia". He said: "We expect the results as soon as possible."
Since the outbreak was first detected in Nigeria, tens of thousands of poultry, ducks and ostriches had been culled, burned and buried.
One of the main worries of the government was to prevent the spread of the epidemic to the densely populated south and the economic capital Lagos.
Nigeria on Wednesday banned backyard poultry in Abuja and its surrounds, but had so far ignored a call from the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation to close meat markets in Kano and Kaduna. Poultry was also freely transported across Africa's most populous nation.