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Nigeria's bird flu status still uncertain despite 4-month gap since last known case
The Associated Press
Tuesday, December 5, 2006
The farm in northern Nigeria where Africa's first case of a deadly bird flu strain was discovered has replaced its slaughtered fowl, and chicken has started to return to local menus after four months without a report of the virus.
But as experts from around the world gather in the West African country of Mali for a conference on the ongoing battle against avian influenza, its status remains uncertain in Nigeria and throughout the continent.
Health experts say insufficient surveillance means they don't really know the true level of bird flu. The two-day conference that opens Wednesday in Mali, and follows similar international meetings in Switzerland, China and Austria, will focus on preparedness as the next bird flu season approaches, including marshaling financial and other resources to fight a disease experts fear could transform into a human pandemic.
At the last official count, the H5N1 strain had been confirmed in 14 of Nigeria's 36 states.
The 46,000 chickens slaughtered at Sambawa Farms, where H5N1 was first detected in Africa in January, have been replaced by 50,000 new birds, said farm manager Muhammadu Sambawa.
Cases of bird flu were later reported in neighboring Niger and Cameroon and farther afield in Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Egypt, Djibouti and Sudan. The World Health Organization says there have been scores of avian influenza cases and deaths in humans, most of them in Asia. There have been human cases ? and deaths ? identified so far only in Egypt and Djibouti in Africa.
An international effort is behind a surveillance project due to start by January, said Timothy Obi, head of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization's bird flu team in Nigeria.
FAO has trained 600 animal health technicians and they have been provided with laboratory equipment and protective clothing. They will be sent to Nigeria's 36 states to test for H5N1 in commercial farms and at homes where poultry is raised and help set up a reporting system for bird deaths, according to Junaid Maina, Nigeria's head of livestock and pest control.
The EU has provided more than US$200,000 (more than ?150,000), and some additional funding will be provided by the Nigerian government.
Across West Africa, FAO is providing funding and working with the African Union to set up a network of bird flu laboratories and surveillance, encouraging countries to exchange information and personnel. Officials say the new scheme for Nigeria is only an intensification of this effort in the worst hit country.
By September when the last known case of the virus was found in poultry in a farm near Nigeria's biggest city of Lagos, 915,650 birds had been slaughtered nationwide by government veterinary teams under a scheme in which the owners were promised compensation.
The scheme was suspended in July after it ran out of funds. Many backyard poultry farmers, estimated by FAO to keep 60 percent of Nigeria's 140 million poultry, complain they were shut out of the compensation process in favor of the large, commercial farms.
Often keeping their birds at home, close to people and other domestic animals, they and their families appear to be at greater risk of catching the virus from birds and bringing the world closer to the dreaded jump that could create a strain of the virus communicable between humans.
So far they appear to be the ones with the least access to any form of support to deal with the impact of bird flu.
Official rules require that poultry deaths be formally reported and slaughter carried out by government veterinary teams before a farmer can qualify for compensation. But most of the poor and illiterate farmers lack the ability to file the type of official reports required.
Many veterinary officials fear widespread dissatisfaction with the compensation system is keeping farmers from reporting bird deaths, making tracking of the virus more difficult.
The government sees the new surveillance project as an opportunity to assess what is needed and better address the shortcomings of current efforts, according to Maina, head of Nigeria's livestock department.
At Birnin Yero Gari, a small rural village that lies next to Sambawa Farms on gently sloping brush, villagers recount what they consider the government's failings.
Every family in the village of about 2,000 people lost an average of 10 birds each to bird flu, which they believe came from the nearby big, commercial farm, but got no compensation, said 55-year-old village shopkeeper, Mohammed Shuaibu.
"Government officials came here, took blood samples from our birds and from people, but we never saw them again," Shuaibu said. "They don't care for us."
The village is shrouded in a mist of dust and a cold, dry wind blew southwards from the Sahara. Some of the villagers recalled it was the time of the year when chicken plagues strike.
One of them, 26-year-old Lawal ****tu, said he bought a cock from a market a few weeks ago and days later it sickened and died. His other fowls also started sickening and dying one after another, making him fear the disease had returned.
"It also affected some neighbors' chickens, but it hasn't spread like the last time," ****tu said.
Those deaths, the villagers said, were not reported to the authorities.
.
Nigeria's bird flu status still uncertain despite 4-month gap since last known case
The Associated Press
Tuesday, December 5, 2006
The farm in northern Nigeria where Africa's first case of a deadly bird flu strain was discovered has replaced its slaughtered fowl, and chicken has started to return to local menus after four months without a report of the virus.
But as experts from around the world gather in the West African country of Mali for a conference on the ongoing battle against avian influenza, its status remains uncertain in Nigeria and throughout the continent.
Health experts say insufficient surveillance means they don't really know the true level of bird flu. The two-day conference that opens Wednesday in Mali, and follows similar international meetings in Switzerland, China and Austria, will focus on preparedness as the next bird flu season approaches, including marshaling financial and other resources to fight a disease experts fear could transform into a human pandemic.
At the last official count, the H5N1 strain had been confirmed in 14 of Nigeria's 36 states.
The 46,000 chickens slaughtered at Sambawa Farms, where H5N1 was first detected in Africa in January, have been replaced by 50,000 new birds, said farm manager Muhammadu Sambawa.
Cases of bird flu were later reported in neighboring Niger and Cameroon and farther afield in Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Egypt, Djibouti and Sudan. The World Health Organization says there have been scores of avian influenza cases and deaths in humans, most of them in Asia. There have been human cases ? and deaths ? identified so far only in Egypt and Djibouti in Africa.
An international effort is behind a surveillance project due to start by January, said Timothy Obi, head of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization's bird flu team in Nigeria.
FAO has trained 600 animal health technicians and they have been provided with laboratory equipment and protective clothing. They will be sent to Nigeria's 36 states to test for H5N1 in commercial farms and at homes where poultry is raised and help set up a reporting system for bird deaths, according to Junaid Maina, Nigeria's head of livestock and pest control.
The EU has provided more than US$200,000 (more than ?150,000), and some additional funding will be provided by the Nigerian government.
Across West Africa, FAO is providing funding and working with the African Union to set up a network of bird flu laboratories and surveillance, encouraging countries to exchange information and personnel. Officials say the new scheme for Nigeria is only an intensification of this effort in the worst hit country.
By September when the last known case of the virus was found in poultry in a farm near Nigeria's biggest city of Lagos, 915,650 birds had been slaughtered nationwide by government veterinary teams under a scheme in which the owners were promised compensation.
The scheme was suspended in July after it ran out of funds. Many backyard poultry farmers, estimated by FAO to keep 60 percent of Nigeria's 140 million poultry, complain they were shut out of the compensation process in favor of the large, commercial farms.
Often keeping their birds at home, close to people and other domestic animals, they and their families appear to be at greater risk of catching the virus from birds and bringing the world closer to the dreaded jump that could create a strain of the virus communicable between humans.
So far they appear to be the ones with the least access to any form of support to deal with the impact of bird flu.
Official rules require that poultry deaths be formally reported and slaughter carried out by government veterinary teams before a farmer can qualify for compensation. But most of the poor and illiterate farmers lack the ability to file the type of official reports required.
Many veterinary officials fear widespread dissatisfaction with the compensation system is keeping farmers from reporting bird deaths, making tracking of the virus more difficult.
The government sees the new surveillance project as an opportunity to assess what is needed and better address the shortcomings of current efforts, according to Maina, head of Nigeria's livestock department.
At Birnin Yero Gari, a small rural village that lies next to Sambawa Farms on gently sloping brush, villagers recount what they consider the government's failings.
Every family in the village of about 2,000 people lost an average of 10 birds each to bird flu, which they believe came from the nearby big, commercial farm, but got no compensation, said 55-year-old village shopkeeper, Mohammed Shuaibu.
"Government officials came here, took blood samples from our birds and from people, but we never saw them again," Shuaibu said. "They don't care for us."
The village is shrouded in a mist of dust and a cold, dry wind blew southwards from the Sahara. Some of the villagers recalled it was the time of the year when chicken plagues strike.
One of them, 26-year-old Lawal ****tu, said he bought a cock from a market a few weeks ago and days later it sickened and died. His other fowls also started sickening and dying one after another, making him fear the disease had returned.
"It also affected some neighbors' chickens, but it hasn't spread like the last time," ****tu said.
Those deaths, the villagers said, were not reported to the authorities.
.