posted
Nigeria tests dead poultry from northern farm
ABUJA (Reuters) - Nigeria has sent samples from poultry that died on a farm in the northern state of Kano to a veterinary laboratory for testing, but authorities said this was unlikely to be Africa's first case of deadly H5N1 bird flu
Poultry have died in abnormally high numbers on the Sovat farm in Danbare village and samples have been sent to a laboratory in central Plateau state to identify the cause of the deaths.
"From what we know for now, it's most likely to be Newcastle disease, but we've sent samples just to check," said Junaidu Maina, acting director of the livestock department at the Agriculture Ministry in the capital Abuja.
Newcastle disease is a highly contagious viral disease in poultry for which there is no treatment. The virus causes, at worst, only minor illnesses in humans.
Sick birds typically develop diseases of the nervous, respiratory or reproductive systems and morbidity is usually high, according to website www.thepoultrysite.com.
The H5N1 strain of avian influenza, which has killed more than 70 people in Asia, has spread from Asia to Europe and the Middle East, but has not been detected in Africa.
Experts have warned that any outbreak of the deadly virus could have devastating consequences in the world's poorest continent, where millions of people live at close quarters with poultry.
Lola Sadiq, the point person for avian flu at the World Health Organization (WHO) office in Abuja, said the WHO was aware of the poultry deaths in Kano and was liaising with the Nigerian agriculture and health ministries over the issue.
She said the laboratory in Plateau would try and identify the cause of the deaths and if it was unable to do so it would send samples abroad for further testing. It was not immediately clear how long the testing would take.
The official in charge of bird flu at the Health Ministry, Jide Coker, said Nigeria had a plan of action to react to any suspected outbreak of the H5N1 virus.
Experts fear the strain, which mostly affects birds, could mutate to a form that can easily be transmitted between people, sparking a pandemic that could kill millions.
While the strain has not yet been detected in Africa, experts say Africa is on the flight-path of migratory birds thought to carry the disease and the close proximity between poultry and humans in towns and villages provides an ideal environment for the virus to jump to humans.
Delegates to a WHO conference in Congo last month said a shortage of money and scientific knowhow could leave Africa struggling to detect and combat bird flu.
quote: She said the laboratory in Plateau would try and identify the cause of the deaths and if it was unable to do so it would send samples abroad for further testing. It was not immediately clear how long the testing would take.
what does this mean? Its either the lab knows they can test it or if they are not sure they should send it to those who can do it without delay.
quote: The official in charge of bird flu at the Health Ministry, Jide Coker, said Nigeria had a plan of action to react to any suspected outbreak of the H5N1 virus.
Really great. And does this "plan of action" not include at least a laboratory that could even test to identiy the virus without having to send it abroad. Does this plan not take cognisance of the time factor involved in containing an epidemic? While they continue to play with the virus at ill equiped lab at plateau before finally giving up and sending it abroad, the virus ( if it indeed turns out to be the feared virus which we hope not)will have by then done its worst and spread beyond control. Still the man has mouth to say the have a "plan of action". Typical. Plan of action my nyash. I know what is their plan of action. If bird flu comes, they will all abandon nigeria with their family for london or dubai. that is their "plan of action" Obasanjo goverment have less than nothing. Only Almighty God will protect nigerians from such disaster.
By DULUE MBACHU, Associated Press Writer Wed Feb 8, 10:22 AM ET
LAGOS, Nigeria - The deadly H5N1 bird flu virus has been detected on a large commercial chicken farm in Nigeria — the first reported outbreak in Africa, the World Organization for Animal Health said Wednesday.
The outbreak appears to be restricted to birds, and no human infections have been reported, the Paris-based organization said.
Nigeria said the outbreak was on a farm in Jaji, a village in the northern state of Kaduna. Agriculture Minister Adamu Bello told reporters in Abuja that the deadly strain of the virus was detected in samples taken Jan. 16 from birds on the farm.
"We are dealing with a new continent," said Alex Thiermann, an expert for the World Organization for Animal Health, known as the OIE, told The Associated Press.
Bird flu began ravaging poultry stocks across Asia in 2003, forcing the slaughter of more than 100 million birds and jumping to humans. The World Health Organization has confirmed 88 deaths from bird flu out of a total of 165 cases of human infection. Almost all the cases have been in Asia, but the disease recently has been detected in Europe and the Middle East.
Though all the people who contracted the disease so far are believed to have been infected through contact with sick birds, experts are concerned the disease could mutate into a form easily spread from human to human, potentially triggering a global pandemic.
Experts have long been concerned about Africa's ability to deal with a bird flu outbreak. Thiermann noted that some African countries have "very weak" veterinary systems.
Thiermann said all 46,000 birds on the Nigerian farm have been killed and their bodies disposed of, and Nigerian authorities have banned the movement of birds and people from the farm. Officials also are investigating whether birds were transferred to other farms in the past 21 days, and they, too, are being quarantined, he said.
"We feel that they are doing everything they can and they certainly need help," he said.
Additional protective clothing was being moved Wednesday from Senegal to Nigeria, he said.
Experts had suspected that migrating wild birds could spread the disease to Africa, said Thiermann, noting that Nigeria is on a "major flyway."
A laboratory in Padua, Italy, identified the H5N1 strain in the Nigerian birds, OIE said in a statement. It added further tests were being carried out to determine how closely the Nigerian strain matched the H5N1 strain detected elsewhere in the world.
The Italian Health Ministry said the bird flu strain is very similar to those found in Siberia and Mongolia.
The OIE said it was working with the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization to "coordinate a common response to this event."
A team of experts to assess and provide technical advice will leave for Nigeria toward the end of this week, said Thiermann, who is a special adviser to the OIE's director.
Health officials had feared a deadly bird flu virus could enter impoverished, loosely governed African regions, where many people raise chickens at home for personal consumption.
Nigerian officials said Wednesday that initial tests on chickens that mysteriously died in Kano, a state neighboring Kaduna, showed no signs of bird flu. Salihu Jibrin, head of the state's livestock department said at least 60,000 birds have died in Kano state in recent weeks. Tests were ongoing.
Nigerian authorities nevertheless urged farmers to monitor their flocks and report strange ailments to authorities. Kano set up a committee of veterinary surgeons to visit farms and watch out for evidence of a bird flu outbreak after some poultry farms reported large-scale bird deaths last week.
Large-scale poultry farms aside, many Nigerian families live in close quarters with chickens and other fowl, which are an important food source. The birds generally are kept with other domestic animals at night but are allowed to roam freely during the day.
Controlling the spread of the virus could be particularly difficult in Africa, where central governments often exert little control in far-flung rural areas most likely to have people keeping fowl in their homes.
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Associated Press reporter John Leicester in Paris contributed to this report.
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quote:Nigeria says it will cull all infected birds and compensate farmers.
But a northern Nigerian farmer told the BBC News website that people fear they will not be paid.
"The dead birds are being sent to market to be sold as meat... because people are not sure if the government will assist them," said Auwalu Haruna from Kano
quote: THE Federal Government has confirmed that the Avian Bird Flu Influenza has been detected in Nigeria. But it asked Nigerians not to panic at the finding as the disease does not pose any threat to human beings. "There is absolutely no need for panic. Once it is cooked, there is no harm because the disease is non-resistant to heat. It just kills itself off. If it is cooked, there is no danger of people getting infected."-- Minister of Agriculture, Alhaji Adamu Bello
Famous last words??? This is what happens when you have idiots as ministers. Instead of enlightening the people, about the risk of infection during the slaughtering and preparation of the chickens, the minister insists there is no peoblem once the chiken is cooked. Does the honourable minister think all the human beings that have died of this disease in Asia and Europe ate their chiken raw? Ofcourse the minister conviniently forgets to mention the real problem with this virus, which is the danger of the H5N1 strain crossing with a normal human influenza strain (the are the same species) to form a new airborne mutation. The scientists tell us that this is inevitable, only a question of when and where.
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posted
Nigerian bird flu outbreak worries experts Thu Feb 9, 2006 5:41 PM ET By Estelle Shirbon
JAJI, Nigeria (Reuters) - The mysterious mass deaths of chickens in northern Nigeria fueled fears on Thursday the H5N1 avian flu virus was spreading rapidly just days after it was first detected in Africa.
The World Health Organization said Africa was at high risk of widespread outbreaks in birds. It rolled out an immediate public education campaign, piggybacking it on a polio vaccination program, to warn people how to avoid becoming infected with the often deadly virus.
Bird flu has killed at least 88 people and infected 165 since it re-emerged in late 2003, most of the victims in east Asia. Indonesia said two women in their 20s had tested positive for the virus and were being treated at a specialist Jakarta hospital, while the WHO confirmed an 11th case in China.
The World Health Organization and other experts say H5N1 is poised to mutate into a form that passes easily from person to person. If it does, it could spark a human influenza pandemic in which millions could die.
The virus has been spreading steadily westward, killing or forcing the slaughter of more than 200 million birds. It occasionally infects people and killed four children in an outbreak in eastern Turkey last month and claimed the life of a teenager in Iraq.
This week, it was found in poultry in Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation. Many observers say African countries lack the health and disease control systems to contain the virus.
"The single most important public health priority at this stage is to warn people about the dangers of close contact with sick or dead birds infected with H5N1," WHO Director-General Dr. Lee Jong-wook said in a statement posted on WHO's Web site at http://www.who.int.
RISKY SLAUGHTER
"Experience in Asian countries and most recently in Turkey underscores the fact that immediate, clear public information is critical to help protect human health," Lee added.
"The home slaughter and consumption of birds which appear to be sick is high-risk behavior. Ideally, people culling and disposing of birds should have protective equipment."
WHO said a campaign already under way in Nigeria to vaccinate children against polio would be used to help monitor for human bird flu cases and to help coordinate containment, treatment, and laboratory work.
"African health systems are already struggling to cope with children and adults suffering from HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, respiratory infections and other infectious conditions," WHO noted.
Nigeria's Agriculture Ministry said 45,000 chickens had died in Kaduna state in the north of the country, and confirmed cases of H5N1 had also been found at three farms in neighboring states.
At the battery farm where the first H5N1 sample was taken, outside Jaji village in Kaduna state, 15 big concrete hangars used as chicken pens were empty on Thursday and workers said all the birds had died about a month ago.
"They burned them and buried them. They didn't tell us what had happened. I heard it on the news," said a farmworker, asking not to be identified.
An Agriculture Ministry official in Kano state said authorities had ordered all farms with mass bird deaths to be quarantined, but they would not exterminate the flocks and pay farmers until H5N1 was confirmed by new tests.
"Once we confirm the test is positive, we will go there and destroy the chickens. Because of the compensation, we are worried people might take advantage," he said.
SPREAD IN CHINA
WHO confirmed an additional human case of bird flu in China, in a young female farmer from the southeastern province of Fujian who is in the hospital.
"The continuing occurrence of sporadic human cases indicates that the virus is continuing to circulate in birds in at least some parts of the country," WHO said.
Greece said it had found an H5 bird flu virus in three swans and had sent samples to Britain to find out if it was the deadly H5N1 strain.
If so, it would be the first confirmed case of H5N1 in wild birds in a European Union member state. The EU said it would enforce precautionary measures in the affected areas starting on Friday to try to stop the spread, especially as migratory birds return in the coming months.
Greece's neighbor Bulgaria has also sent samples to Britain for testing after finding H5 in dead swans. A series of H5N1 outbreaks have already been confirmed in birds in Romania, which shares a border with Bulgaria.
The Dutch Farm Ministry said on Thursday it would order poultry producers to keep birds indoors starting next month to prevent the threat of infection from migratory birds. Germany has announced similar measures.
(Additional reporting by Ade Rina in Jakarta, Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva, Alkman Granitsas in Athens, Kremena Miteva in Sofia, Anna Mudeva in Amsterdam and Maggie Fox in Washington)
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Nigeria seeking suspected human bird flu cases
By Daniel Flynn Sat Feb 11, 10:10 AM ET
DANBARE, Nigeria (Reuters) - Nigeria scrambled on Saturday to discover whether people who had fallen ill close to where the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus was found had caught the disease and farmers culled thousands more sick chickens.
No human case of bird flu has been confirmed in Africa's most populous country, where H5N1 has killed tens of thousands of poultry, but it is hard for authorities to monitor because of logistical problems and the high mortality from other diseases.
"There are a few suspected cases ... We're trying to locate them but our sources can't provide us with addresses for now," said Abdulsalam Nasidi, who is in charge of the response to bird flu as a threat to humans at the federal Health Ministry.
He said epidemiologists were searching for two people feared to have contracted bird flu in the northern state of Kaduna, close to Sambawa Farms where one of the poultry samples was found that tested positive for H5N1.
Samples have already been taken from people who are ill in the areas affected by bird flu. Should tests in Nigerian laboratories indicate the presence of bird flu, the samples would be sent abroad for further testing, Nasidi said.
Officials in the far northern state of Katsina said they suspected an outbreak of bird flu at a small poultry farm in the state capital, a few kilometers from the border with Niger.
A confirmed outbreak in Katsina would raise fears of the virus spreading into neighboring countries. Niger is one of several African countries that have announced bans on imports of Nigerian poultry, but the bans will be hard to enforce.
Nasidi said the ministry had heard rumors of a suspected human case of bird flu in the south of the country but had no further details and was trying to check the reports.
If confirmed, this would be a major development as bird flu in poultry has so far only been confirmed in the northern states of Kaduna and Kano and the central state of Plateau.
FIRST AFRICAN OUTBREAK
Experts fear the H5N1 strain, which has killed at least 88 people in Asia and the Middle East since early 2003, may mutate into a form that can spread from human to human. They fear this could cause a global flu pandemic that could kill millions.
The outbreak of H5N1 in Nigeria is the first known appearance of the virus in Africa. The strain has been confirmed on four farms, and other farmers and villagers are reporting mass deaths of poultry.
At Phed Farm near the village of Danbare in Kano state -- close to Sovet Farm where one of the H5N1 samples came from -- farm workers in shorts and sandals were killing chickens with knives and using their bare hands to toss them into fires.
They said the farm had lost thousands of chickens in the past few days and they were culling the rest of the flock. Their hands and clothing were spattered with chicken blood and the only protective equipment they had were surgical face masks.
Information about bird flu and protection against it has been slow to filter out in the impoverished region.
Trade in live fowl is unabated and people are moving chickens around by public transport as usual. At the market in Kano, the state capital and Nigeria's second-largest city, people were carrying poultry in baskets on their heads and tied to the handlebars of motorcycles.
As in most of sub-Saharan Africa, poultry are everywhere in Nigeria -- in villagers' backyards, in city streets, by the side of the road, in crowded markets, on buses. Most poultry is bought live and slaughtered at home.
The government has ordered suspect birds culled and suspect farms quarantined, but in the field there has so far been little sign of a concrete response by the authorities.
(Additional reporting by Estelle Shirbon in Abuja)
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