A suspected fresh outbreak of avian influenza has been reported in northern Nigeria’s Katsina State with more than 5 000 birds infected, the agriculture commissioner said on Friday.
”We have detected an outbreak in three poultry farms in and around the state capital in the past week. We strongly suspect it to be bird flu,” Ali Hussein Dutsin-Ma said.
”All the symptoms found on the birds suggest avian flu and we don’t have to wait for laboratory confirmation to know what we are dealing with”, he said.
Dutsin-Ma said the symptoms were detected on a small farm in the farming village of Batagarawa outside Katsina on January 2 while two more farms showed signs of infection in the metropolis a week later.
”A total of 5 000 infected chickens and pigeons from the three farms have been culled and the farms disinfected in our efforts to contain the spread,” he said.
”All the workers on the poultry farms have undergone medical checks to ensure they do not contract the virus and they are being closely monitored in case they develop any symptoms to suggest avian-flu infection”, he added.
The commissioner said samples of the infected birds had been taken to the National Veterinary Research Institute in the central city of Jos for laboratory tests.
The deadly strain of avian influenza was first detected on a farm in Jaji, outside the nearby northern city of Kaduna, in February 2006 where it spread to other parts of the country and Africa.
More than 450 000 chickens have already been slaughtered in Nigeria, mainly in the north, but no human case has so far been reported. — AFP
