Africa’s first outbreak of a deadly strain of bird flu has spread to at least four farms, Nigerian officials said on Thursday, as the continent braced itself for a possible epidemic.
Nigerian agriculture ministry spokesperson Tope Ajakaiye said tests on chicken carcasses had identified the H5N1 type of avian influenza, which can kill humans, in northern Nigerian sites more than 200km apart.
”Four farms have been cordoned off and quarantined; one in Kaduna, two near Kano and one in Plateau State,” he said.
Previously, officials had said that the disease had only been identified at Sambawa Farm near Kaduna, and Thursday’s announcement will increase fears that bird flu may be poised to spread rapidly around the country.
At Sambawa farm itself, 300km north of Abuja, 20 police officers were deployed to block access to a site where 45 000 chickens are now known to have died from the highly infectious virus.
Kaduna State agriculture commissioner Lawal Yakawada said that a team from Nigeria’s National Veterinary Research Institute would arrive later in the day ”to ensure that all the other chickens are killed, burned and buried”.
Agriculture ministry officials in the capital Abuja said experts from the Food and Agriculture Organisation, World Health Organisation and the World Organisation for Animal Health were expected in Nigeria within 48 hours.
Ajaikaye also said that the United States had pledged $20-million to help Nigeria fight the outbreak.
Experts from the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention would come from their Kenya base and set up a laboratory in Nigeria, he said. They are to bring 2 000 protective suits for health and veterinary workers, he added.
Kaduna State and neighbouring Kano State have broadcast radio spots and sent education teams to farming areas to warn of the danger of bird flu.
Since the H5N1 strain of bird flu was first detected in Hong Kong in 1997, it has spread across south Asia into southeastern Europe and has been blamed for the deaths of 88 people who came into contact with sick birds.
Experts fear Africa, with its underfunded health services and populations weakened by HIV/Aids and malnutrition, could now be facing a new epidemic, which would devastate poultry farming and encourage the virus to develop.
In the worst case scenario, if H5N1 mutates into a form which would be transmissible between humans, it could kill tens of millions of people.
A South African veterinary institute said on Thursday it is to conduct tests on bird samples from Kenya, Malawi and Sudan to help track the possible spread of bird flu.
”We have been asked by the Food and Agricultural Organisation and the African Union to be a support laboratory for the African continent,” said Celia Abolnik, senior researcher at Pretoria’s Onderstepoort Veterinary Institute.
”We will be testing samples collected for surveillance on the African continent,” she said, adding that the samples should arrive in South Africa for testing in the next two weeks.
Experts have advised Nigeria and any country which subsequently identifies a bird flu outbreak to limit the movement of poultry, quarantine infected farms and destroy sick birds.
Nigeria has promised two billion naira ($15-million) to do just that and to compensate farmers for culled livestock, but health teams appeared to be slow to be getting into place on Thursday.
Auwalu Haruna, secretary of the Kano State poultry farmers’ association warned that farmers and traders were slaughtering sick birds and rushing them to market for cheap sale ”in a frantic effort to minimise losses”.
Meanwhile Kenya joined South Africa, Benin and Mauritania in banning all poultry imports from Nigeria and ordered stepped up surveillance measures aimed at preventing the spread of bird flu. – AFP
