More Bird Flu in Nigeria, Spreads to New EU Mammal
Date: 10-Mar-06
Country: SOUTH AFRICA
Author: Ed Stoddard
In Europe, experts believe migratory birds carrying the virus are the greater threat to poultry than the poultry trade itself and governments have ordered poultry to be kept indoors.
Industry officials said that decision was hitting free-range poultry farmers hard.
Experts said a flourishing informal chicken trade and porous borders had helped avian flu spread in Nigeria and Niger, the only sub-Saharan African countries to detect H5N1 so far.
"They (migratory birds) can participate in the spread of the disease. But in our case we should be more worried with the trade of poultry products," said Dr Bonaventure Mtei, the World Health Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) representative to the Southern African Development Community.
The UN World Health Organisation (WHO) said the virus had now been detected on more than 130 farms in 11 of Nigeria's 37 states, in both the north and the south.
Although no human cases of the virus have been confirmed in Africa so far, experts fear it may only be a matter of time before the disease that has killed 96 people worldwide passes to people in countries hard-hit by other diseases.
While H5N1 is overwhelmingly an infection in birds, it occasionally can infect people. The WHO has documented the virus in 175 people in seven countries. If it acquires the ability to easily pass from person to person, it could cause a pandemic that would kill millions in the space of a few months.
"The spread of H5N1 to Africa is cause for great concern ... overall the African continent remains vulnerable," WHO director general Dr Lee Jong-wook said, on a visit to Nairobi.
"We do not know, for example, what kind of an impact a pandemic virus would have on people who are already immunosuppressed as a result of HIV," he said. "The impact of an influenza pandemic on African countries' already overburdened health care systems could be extremely grave."
Where people live closer to fowl, the risk of infection - usually through close contact with an infected bird - is higher.
HUMAN TESTS
Most cases of the virus have been in wild birds in Europe and on Thursday testing continued, with Serbia confirming its first case of H5N1 in a swan and Norway saying it was testing two ducks after finding 12 birds dead in the same area.
In further evidence that other animals are able to contract the virus, Germany said it had found H5N1 in a marten - a weasel-like animal - just days after finding it in three cats. The WHO said more research was needed to determine what this meant for the risk of human infection.
Azerbaijan was sending samples from 11 people, including three who died, to Britain for bird flu tests, the WHO said.
The Azeris, including eight members from the same family, are from a village near a southeastern region of the country where the deadly H5N1 virus has been found among birds.
"There have been three deaths, with symptoms somewhat similar to H5N1 infection," WHO spokeswoman Maria Cheng said. "Other people are still in hospital, including one who is very sick."
Countries continued preventive measures to stop the spread of the virus among birds. Russia said it would start a mass vaccination of domestic fowl in the next two days.
Villagers in Albania, which confirmed its first H5N1 case on Wednesday and which was planning to cull and bury close to 2,000 chickens on Thursday, were finding it difficult to part with their backyard poultry.
"Let me eat it, I don't care if I do die," said one elderly lady.
(Additional reporting by Marie-Louise Gumuchian, Aleksandras Budrys, Benet Koleka, Stephanie Nebehay, Terje Solvik)
