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Morocco steps up bird flu checks as migration begins

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  • Morocco steps up bird flu checks as migration begins

    Morocco steps up bird flu checks as migration begins
    Tue 14 Feb 2006 1:33 PM ET
    By Tom Pfeiffer

    http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L14625532.htm

    RABAT, Feb 14 (Reuters) - Morocco stepped up checks for avian flu as birds began migrating north from sub-Saharan Africa this week, while a wary population took each reported bird death as a sign the deadly virus may have already arrived.

    Newspaper L'Economiste reported on Tuesday that several dozen wild birds had been found dead around lakes near Morocco's Middle Atlas mountains and said local officials were beginning urgent checks to find out why.

    The H5N1 virus was discovered in Nigeria last week and Moroccan health experts fear it will be carried to northern Africa by birds flying to Europe after spending the winter months in warmer climates.

    "It's critical from this week onwards for Morocco. Birds have already begun to migrate back north," said Mohamed El Haouadfi, professor of avian pathology at Rabat's Hassan II Agronomy and Veterinary Institute.

    North African health and agriculture officials met in Tunis on Friday to coordinate plans to ward off an outbreak, including increased health checks at southern border points and airports.

    Morocco has built stocks of anti-viral drugs for humans and stepped up checks on poultry and wild birds, focusing its surveillance on 60 potential "hotspots", mostly lakes and coastal wetlands where infected migrating birds could land.

    Over 300 dead cattle egrets were retrieved earlier this month from a lake in Khemisset province east of Rabat, but the government said they had probably been poisoned by insecticide.

    FARMS THREAT

    Most of Morocco's 200 million poultry are kept in industrial breeding houses but, as in Nigeria, the countryside is dotted with smallholdings where chickens live close to humans.

    Backyard farms in Asia have been one reason the virus became endemic there and caused so many human cases.

    "If it's not controlled immediately, it will be very difficult to stop bird flu spreading throughout the country," Haoudfi said. "We really need international help."

    No bird flu case has been reported in North Africa but fears of an outbreak have hit poultry consumption, with sales down 40 percent in Tunisia after rumours a child had died of the virus.

    In the crowded old town of Morocco's capital Rabat, where live chickens are stacked in cages for sale and street vendors hawk fried chicken from makeshift stalls, shopkeepers said poultry sales had plummeted.

    "I was buying 150 chickens every day for my stall before the flu appeared," said Hassan Mountacir, a butcher in Rabat's central market. "Now I'm down to 10 or 20 at the most."

    So far 91 people have died in Asia and the Middle East after picking up the H5N1 virus from infected birds.

    The World Health Organization fears it could mutate into a form that is transmittable among people, sparking a pandemic.

    "Attention is at maximum," Moroccan Health Minister Mohammed Cheikh Biadillah told reporters last week. "All services, both veterinary and health, are working in a network of surveillance and epidemiology and we are on the lookout." (Additional reporting by Sonia Ounissi in Tunis)
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