Vigilant Africa Scrambles to Limit Bird Flu Spread
Date: 09-Feb-06
Country: SENEGAL
Author: Alistair Thomson
The disease can jump to humans from infected birds and since 2003 has killed at least 88 people in Asia and the Middle East.
Experts have expressed fears that an outbreak in Africa, the world's poorest continent, could pose a serious threat given already weak public health systems and the fact that many rural people live close to chickens and other poultry.
Neighbouring Benin immediately banned Nigerian poultry imports and other countries stepped up monitoring measures.
"We're on alert," said Cheikh Sadibou Fall, coordinator of the national anti-bird flu committee in Senegal, mainland Africa's most westerly country.
"We will study the cases to see whether migratory birds will spread the virus, and take appropriate measures ... for the time being, we are on alert against any suspect cases of dead birds," he told Reuters on Wednesday.
Earlier, the World Organisation for Animal Health confirmed H5N1 in Nigeria, where thousands of birds have died.
Scientists have long feared birds migrating from Asia and Europe may carry the virus to the continent, probably the worst equipped, financially and technically, to tackle an epidemic.
Celia Abolnik, a senior researcher at South Africa's Onderstepoort Veterinary Institute, said the institute was expecting samples for testing soon from live waterfowl in Malawi, Sudan and Kenya.
Onderstepoort has been designated as the main testing site for Africa by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation and the African Union, she said.
"We are alert, but we are not panicking," said Mensah Agyen-Frempong, veterinary services director in Ghana, separated from Nigeria only by the thin territories of Togo and Benin.
"We have staff at ports of entry and they are well briefed," he said. "We are doing random surveys ... keeping an eye on wild birds that flock to the wetlands."
"SO MANY DISEASES"
World Health Organisation regional adviser Adamou Yada noted there had not yet been any known cases among humans in Africa, but said a team was on standby to head to Nigeria if requested.
"In Africa we have so many diseases, so many priorities, if it spreads in Africa it will be a nightmare," Yada told Reuters from WHO Africa headquarters in the Congo Republic.
Many regional governments already have measures in place, including bans on poultry imports from infected countries.
Gabon, south of Nigeria on Africa's west coast, unveiled an action plan to deal with the disease, including tougher import restrictions, just hours before the Nigerian case was confirmed.
Import bans will be harder to enforce on some of Africa's porous land borders, where people and goods cross relatively freely and local laboratory capacity is limited or non-existent.
"We must increase surveillance," said Dr Nikaise Lepri Aka of the national anti-bird flu committee in Ivory Coast, one of a number of countries that already has epidemiological monitoring programmes to detect the deadly virus among humans or animals.
Ghana's Agyen-Frempong said education should be a major part of the effort to counter the spread of the disease.
"We have contacted our regional and district (veterinary) offices and have given them guidelines for ... educating our farmers ... What is important is for the general public to know what the disease is and what its symptoms are like," he said.
H5N1 bird flu causes persistent fever, cough, shortness of breath and acute respiratory distress in humans. It can lead to multiple organ failure within days, especially in the lungs and kidneys, and more than half those diagnosed with it have died.
There is no certain cure but the anti-viral drug Tamiflu can be effective if used within 48 hours of symptoms starting.
(Additional reporting by Diadie Ba and Nick Tattersall in Dakar, Kwaku Sakyi-Addo in Accra, Loucoumane Coulibaly in Abidjan, Antoine Lawson in Libreville, Ed Stoddard in Johannesburg)
