Ghana: Agric Ministry confirms Sunyani Bird flu

[hawkeye]

Agric Ministry confirms Sunyani Bird flu
Posted on: 22-May-2007

The Ministry of Food and Agriculture has confirmed the detection of the Avian Influenza (Bird Flu) in the New Dormaa suburb of Sunyani in the Brong Ahafo Region.

The farm is located at Asuokwa.

A statement issued by the ministry said all necessary steps have been taken to contain the disease in the area, including the destruction of all birds on the farm. The farm has been disinfected and quarantined.

The ministry said it has also intensified the surveillance of farms in the Sunyani District and urged the public to report any unusual deaths of birds to the nearest Agricultural office.

?Do not to touch dead birds with their bare hands. Wear a polythene bag on your hand, pick up the dead bird, put it into another polythene bag and send it immediately to the nearest Veterinary or Agricultural office;

?Remember that the greatest risk of exposure to the virus is through slaughter and handling of infected birds?, the statement urged.

The statement advised poultry farmers to strengthen bio-security on their farms.

The Ministry further reminded the general public that the ban on the importation of poultry and poultry products including feathers from infected countries including Nigeria, Burkina Faso, La Cote d'Ivoire, Egypt, Niger, and Cameroon among others is still in force.

The Ministry assured the general public that it was doing everything to prevent the spread of the disease and enjoined the public to enjoy their chicken.

[HenryN]

Re: Ghana: Agric Ministry confirms Sunyani Bird flu

http://www.france24.com/france24Public/en/administration/afp-news.html?id=070522152642.zltbbtyo&cat=null

Ghana reports second bird flu outbreak in poultry <!-- Author --><!-- intro -->
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<!-- Subtitle --><!-- Text -->Veterinary officials in Ghana on Tuesday declared the second outbreak of the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus in the west African country.
The latest outbreak was on a farm in Sunyani, a provincial capital 400 kilometres (250 miles) north of Accra.
Gary Quarcoo, the head of veterinary services at the agriculture ministry, confirmed that samples from the farm had tested positive for the deadly bird flu virus.
The latest case comes less than a month after Ghana's first case of H5N1 was detected on a farm near Tema, a port city to the east of Accra.
Quarcoo said veterinary officials have culled thousands of birds in Sunyani and had also destroyed animal feed and farm equipment.
Ghana is the eighth African country to report a case of the H5N1 bird flu virus in poultry.
Avian influenza has killed 185 people since late 2003, most of them in Southeast Asia, according to World Health Organisation figures.
In its present form, H5N1 is lethal for birds and people in close proximity to infected fowl, but experts fear that it could one day mutate to easily spread from human to human and trigger a deadly pandemic.

[HenryN]

Re: Ghana: Agric Ministry confirms Sunyani Bird flu

Commentary at

http://www.recombinomics.com/News/05220701/H5N1_Ghana_Sunyani.html

[MHSC]

Re: Ghana: Agric Ministry confirms Sunyani Bird flu

Ghana detects second outbreak of H5N1 in poultry
22 May 2007 19:42:13 GMT
<!-- 22 May 2007 19:42:13 GMT ## for search indexer, do not remove--> Source: Reuters

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<!-- AN5.0: inline article box end --> <script language="JavaScript" src="http://www.alertnet.org/bin/js/article.js"></script> <input value="13" name="CurrentSize" id="CurrentSize" type="hidden"> ACCRA, May 22 (Reuters) - Ghana has detected a second outbreak of the highly pathogenic H5N1 bird flu virus in the centre of the West African country, far from the first case detected three weeks ago, a veterinary official said on Tuesday.

The outbreak occurred at a small poultry farm of fewer than 200 birds near the town of Sanyani in mid-western Ghana and was confirmed by tests at a laboratory in the coastal capital Accra.

"The birds have been destroyed and the place has been disinfected," Francis Ampratwum, principal veterinary officer at the veterinary services department in Accra, told Reuters.

He said the laboratory would send its results overseas for confirmation but was confident its diagnosis was correct.

On May 2, Ghana announced its first case of H5N1 had been discovered near the main port of Tema, some 20 km (13 miles) east of Accra.

Several countries in West Africa have detected outbreaks of the disease and the worst hit, Nigeria, reported sub-Saharan Africa's only confirmed human death from H5N1 early this year.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L22696741.htm

[AlaskaDenise]

Re: Ghana: Agric Ministry confirms Sunyani Bird flu

Commentary at

http://www.recombinomics.com/News/05...a_Sunyani.html

Commentary

Qinghai H5N1 Confirmed in Sunyani Ghana
Recombinomics Commentary
May 22, 2007

The Ministry of Food and Agriculture has confirmed the detection of the Avian Influenza (Bird Flu) in the New Dormaa suburb of Sunyani in the Brong Ahafo Region.

The farm is located at Asuokwa.

The above comments confirm an H5N1 outbreak in a new region of Ghana. Earlier this month H5N1 was confirmed at multiple farms near Tema on the coast. The above outbreak is about 150 miles north of Tema, providing additional support for infections by migratory birds.

Isolates from the earlier outbreak were sequenced by US NAMRU-3. The H and N of three chicken isolates were identical and were most closely related to three turkey isolates from the Ivory Coast that were collected in December, 2006. The isolates were the expected Qinghai strain with western African markers. The Ghana H sequences differed from the Ivory Coast turkey sequences at 7 positions, and differed from the N sequence at 4 positions. One of the four NA differences was G743A. Although the number of NA difference between closely related sequences is limited, this same change was found in six recent isolates in Egypt (on four different genetic backgrounds) and two isolates from the suburbs of Moscow. The concurrent changes in Europe, the Middle East, and west Africa of the same position, strongly suggests that these difference were acquired by recombination with wild bird sequences that donated G743A.

The latest outbreak in Sunyani is likely to involve a new sequence, supporting an independent introduction of H5N1 into central Ghana. Independent introductions have been seen previously in Nigeria in farms that were only 50 miles apart. Although Ghana had not reported H5N1 infections prior to the outbreaks earlier this month, neighboring countries, including Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger, Burkina Faso, and Ivory Coast have reported H5N1 outbreaks this season and/or last season, and most of the polymorphisms in the Ghana isolates are shared with Qinghai H5N1 isolates in neighboring countries.


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