Bird Flu Spills Over Into Other Nigerian States

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Main Category: Bird Flu / Avian Flu
Also Included In: Flu / Cold / SARS;  Aid / Disasters
Article Date: 09 Feb 2006 - 17:00 PDT

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The H5N1 bird flu virus strain seems to be tearing through Nigeria as the Agricultural Ministry there confirmed two more states have outbreaks of bird flu in poultry stocks. New outbreaks have been found in Kano state and Plateau state - both next to Kaduna state, where the country's, and Africa's, first confirmed cases of bird flu in poultry were reported a few days ago.

There is growing concern among experts that the present outbreaks may be too much for the Nigerian authorities to cope with. Most countries in Africa have weak health and national contingency agencies. Just in Kano state, over 60,000 heads of poultry have died. How many other, not yet identified, birds have been infected is anybody's guess.

Quarantine measures have not yet been implemented in the affected area in Kano. According to a local source, birds and people are still coming and going out of the infected farms.

Benin and Niger, two countries that share borders with Nigeria have banned all movements of birds from Nigeria and are asking people on the borders to be vigilant. Chad, on the other hand, which also borders Nigeria, has not said whether it is carrying out any measures.

Experts from agencies such as WHO, OIE and FAO will be in Nigeria by the end of this week to offer help.

Africa is the world's poorest continent. It is a vast area. Local authorities will not be able to cope with the spread of the H5N1 bird flu virus strain without extensive outside help. Even then, it is debatable whether the world community has the resources to cover such a big area. The potential for the bird flu virus to establish itself firmly in Africa and springboard out in a big way is ominous. In the spring millions of birds migrate to most parts of Europe and some parts of Asia. If they carry bird flu along with them the spread northwards will be swift.

Some parts of Africa, e.g. Sub-Saharan Africa are extremely poor. Getting people to destroy or surrender their poultry for destruction will be almost impossible to achieve, when the alternative for millions of people may be starvation. Sub-Saharan Africa has 600 million people, twice the population of the USA, three times the population of the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain put together (it has nearly the same size population as the USA and European Union combined). Government institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa are extremely weak, and often non-existent outside towns and cities.

Keeping the present outbreak within the borders of Nigeria is crucial. Eradicating it in Nigeria would be better still.

Written by: Christian Nordqvist
Editor: Medical News Today
Copyright: Medical News Today
Not to be reproduced without permission of Medical News Today

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