Bird flu has reappeared, after an eight-month lull, on poultry farms in a fourth state in northern Nigeria, officials said on Friday.
”In the past one week we culled 5 000 chickens following laboratory confirmation of the existence of the avian flu virus in samples of dead chickens,” said Bala Usman Suleiman, Bauchi state agriculture commissioner.
”The outbreak has also spread to backyard poultry in some parts of the state such as Azare and Misau towns,” said Suleiman by telephone from the state capital, Bauchi.
Bauchi was one of several states ravaged by bird flu when the deadly H5N1 virus was first reported in Nigeria in February 2006. After a lull, the virus resurfaced last month in three other northern states: Katsina, Sokoto and Kano.
”The affected backyard poultry farms had a few hundred chickens which were killed and the farms were disinfected to contain the spread.
”We have directed the same measures to be taken on any backyard poultry where the avian flu virus is detected,” Suleiman said.
In March last year, shortly after bird flu first struck Bauchi, some villagers broke into a poultry farm outside the state capital and carted away dozens of flu-infected chickens awaiting incineration in order to consume them. — Sapa-AFP