Bird flu reaches Africa, pandemic feared

By Ebba Kalondo Feb 8, 2006, 15:26 GMT

Nairobi/Abuja - The World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) Wednesday confirmed the presence of the virulent H5N1 strain of bird flu in the northern Nigerian state of Kaduna amid fears of a pandemic on the continent.

According to the OIE, a laboratory in Italy detected the first Nigerian bird flu case, with Nigerian officials initiating a series of preventive measures, including quarantine, disinfection and controls on the movement of animals in the country.

On Monday, Nigerian authorities had reported in another northern state, Kano, the death of thousands of chickens in a village and samples were sent to a laboratory in Abuja lab for tests.

It was not immediately clear whether laboratories in Nigeria have the capacity to successfully test for bird flu.

Nigerian authorities hope the poultry deaths in Kano are due to the highly contagious Newcastle viral disease. Although it is deadly for poultry, is largely harmless to humans.

Agriculture officials have quarantined battery-poultry farms in the state of Kaduna, where the disease was detected in the village of Juja, while movement of all poultry to the area has been restricted.

Scientist had predicted that bird flu would make its its way to Africa this year through the main migratory bird routes that have caused infections in Turkey and some parts of Easten Europe.

The disease has already killed some 85 people, mostly in Asia, all of whom had come into contact with birds. Scientists fear that if the virus mutates and passes from human to human, millions of people can die on a continent where detection mechanisms are non-existent and adult illiteracy is rife especially in outlying rural areas.

Africa could be a deadly breeding ground for an epidemic where many people live close to their chicken coops in their backyards as their only assets and important source of food, scientists had long warned.

'I myself come from Ghana, a country where families and their farmyard animals, children and chickens, often coexist in one happy community,' noted United Nations Secretary General Kofi Anann.

It will be an uphill battle to convince African rural families to kill their animals, especially if their governments have no resources to compensate them for their loss.

The economic knockdown effect of the destruction of rural economies could be devastating for impoverished Africans who are already struggling to feed their families, some of whom are sick with HIV/AIDS and malaria.

Although some African countries have imposed bans on poultry imports as a result of global fears on the virus, the large majority don't have the expertise to test for the deadly H5N1 strain, a scientist said in Nairobi.

African agricultural ministers last year met in the Rwandan capital Kigali and gave dire warnings of the possibility of a global pandemic should bird flu hit the continent.

Many East African countries received assistance from international organizations as scientist predicted it to be on the most direct path of migratory birds coming from Eastern Europe.

Not many had thought of populous Nigeria where cross-border markets of poultry are commonplace in the West African sub-region and where governments are generally considered weak and corrupt.