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Nile Delta, hit by H5N1, also incubates fear
By Michael Slackman The New York Times
FRIDAY, APRIL 14, 2006
KAFR EL SHEIKH IBRAHIM, Egypt
Given the choice between the possibility that her children would fall ill from bird flu or the certainty that they would go hungry if she got rid of the ducks she raised in her home, Hamida Abdullah said there was really no choice at all.
"You think we are going too fast?" Abdullah said as she pushed open a door to expose a feces-covered pen where a dozen muddy ducks chased one another.
It has been two months since Egypt confirmed that avian flu had arrived in this, the Arab world's most populous country. Since then 12 people have developed the illness and 3 have died.
The Egyptian authorities did not hide the flu's arrival, but also did not seem well prepared to deal with it. There was no clear policy initially for trying to stamp out its spread, and even after deciding to permit the vaccination of birds, the government has been unable to provide enough inoculations to meet the need, according to people in the industry.
But when bird flu landed in Egypt - as in many other developing countries - the government was faced not just with a challenging medical and scientific battle, but also a serious social problem that threatened to undermine stability in vast stretches of poor, rural communities.
Poultry is a central part of Egyptians' diet, especially among the legions of poor people who raise chickens to provide food - and income - for their families.
Telling poor Egyptians in the countryside that they cannot raise poultry at home would be like telling Russians they are prohibited from growing vegetables at their dachas. It would cut off not only a crucial source of nutrition, but also a lifestyle that has deep cultural roots. The government recognized the impossibility of trying to ban all home-raised birds, and so allowed people outside the city to keep their flocks, so long as they were caged and healthy.
Bird flu has devastated Egypt's poultry industry. But the tragedy of the disease is most tangible in the Nile Delta region north of Cairo, the nation's breadbasket and now an incubator of fear and bird flu. The human cases of the virus have shown up primarily in three Delta governates, including the location of this village, in Menufiyya, where a 16-year-old girl died after coming in contact with infected birds.
"Every house has chickens," said Elmurss Suliman Khamis, whose family slaughtered their chickens and now supplements its meals with beans, fried and boiled. "We can't live without chickens. We actually live with chickens." Indeed, they live with chickens, ducks and pigeons in their homes.
Abdullah said she runs her household on 200 Egyptian pounds a month, the equivalent of about $35. A pound of meat costs about $2, way out of her price range for everyday meals. She is 43 years old, with two sons, two daughters and a husband. Their home amounts to four cement rooms, bare concrete walls, concrete floors covered by soiled and tattered rugs, and a fetid back pen where the birds run amid construction debris and their own feces.
"Yes, we are eating them," she said, when asked if she worried about bird flu. "What should we do? Throw them in the street?"
The road into this town is packed, rutted dirt, cutting through narrow alleys, past two- and three-story homes, some made of wood and mud, some concrete. This is a farming village surrounded by fields of wheat, which once provided enough income to survive but now must be subsidized by other jobs, primarily low-paying government work.
To make ends meet, everyone here also raised birds.
"May God help us so we can raise chickens again," said Saida Suliman, who estimated that she was in her 60s and who recently slaughtered dozens of birds she raised in pen outside her front door.
Not all of the villagers have been as casual as Abdullah. At first, villagers said, they did not believe the government warnings about bird flu. They said that when inspectors came through, looking for birds, farmers packed them up in crates and carted them out to the fields. The government offered 5 Egyptian pounds per bird it killed, but either the villagers did not believe they would get paid or they felt their birds were worth more at market, which in many cases they were, a poultry expert said.
But then birds started to die. And then people started to get sick. Word spread quickly that some children were at risk. Some people began killing their birds or, in the parlance of the village, "rescue them" before they became ill.
Freezers were packed with the slaughtered birds, and for a time people lived off them. But those stocks are beginning to run out.
Suliman killed her flock after some of the birds began to die. Now she is distraught because she has no idea what she will feed the guests at her son Muhammad's wedding in July. "Can we start raising chickens again?" she asked. "What is the groom going to eat?"
Across the train tracks that cut through the farmland, and across a four-lane roadway, Rateb village sits on the bank of a canal that slices through the farmland. The banks of the canal are thick with white feathers and rotting carcasses of birds. Children ran barefoot on the nearby grass and kicked soccer balls through the feathers. The people who live along the canal insisted they had killed all their birds, but feathers dusted the dirt road in front of their homes and spilled from their homes in drainage that flowed into the street.
Some people conceded that they kept some birds, mostly ducks, after their chickens began to get sick and die. They said they killed the chickens and dumped the dead chickens in the canal. Government officials here say that keeping ducks is even more dangerous than chickens, because they can carry the viruses without dying, but the villagers here say they believe what they see. And what they see are healthy ducks.
"I have chickens, you want to see?" said Sayed Abu Tahon, 24, as he walked by a group of ducks and pigeons feeding outside a house in his village. While the government has cautioned everyone to keep their birds caged and guarded from wild fowl, few actually do.
Abu Tahon walked down a path toward a green field of grain, past two water buffaloes and a little girl passing by on a white donkey. His home, up a steep flight of stairs, was four rooms, shared with his wife, his daughter, his brother, his brother's wife and their three children. He said that he works as a laborer and if he is lucky, finds employment 10 days out of the month.
"I depend more on my chickens than my work," he said throwing open a door onto an open-air balcony loaded with baby chickens. The cement floor was layered in droppings.
Little children in flip-flops ran out to dart after the baby birds, kicking up feathers and feces.
"I think it's a rumor," he said, stoically, his wife by his side, when asked if he worried about bird flu. "I'm not convinced, I've not seen any infected birds."
Downstairs, on the side of the house, he opened a metal door to show perhaps a dozen chickens. More children played in the dirt nearby and women pumped water from a pool to wash dishes and bowls.
"Most of the people who slaughtered their chickens did it because of the rumor," he said. "They believed it. I didn't."
Abeer Allam contributed reporting for this article from Cairo.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/04/13/news/journal.php
By Michael Slackman The New York Times
FRIDAY, APRIL 14, 2006
KAFR EL SHEIKH IBRAHIM, Egypt
Given the choice between the possibility that her children would fall ill from bird flu or the certainty that they would go hungry if she got rid of the ducks she raised in her home, Hamida Abdullah said there was really no choice at all.
"You think we are going too fast?" Abdullah said as she pushed open a door to expose a feces-covered pen where a dozen muddy ducks chased one another.
It has been two months since Egypt confirmed that avian flu had arrived in this, the Arab world's most populous country. Since then 12 people have developed the illness and 3 have died.
The Egyptian authorities did not hide the flu's arrival, but also did not seem well prepared to deal with it. There was no clear policy initially for trying to stamp out its spread, and even after deciding to permit the vaccination of birds, the government has been unable to provide enough inoculations to meet the need, according to people in the industry.
But when bird flu landed in Egypt - as in many other developing countries - the government was faced not just with a challenging medical and scientific battle, but also a serious social problem that threatened to undermine stability in vast stretches of poor, rural communities.
Poultry is a central part of Egyptians' diet, especially among the legions of poor people who raise chickens to provide food - and income - for their families.
Telling poor Egyptians in the countryside that they cannot raise poultry at home would be like telling Russians they are prohibited from growing vegetables at their dachas. It would cut off not only a crucial source of nutrition, but also a lifestyle that has deep cultural roots. The government recognized the impossibility of trying to ban all home-raised birds, and so allowed people outside the city to keep their flocks, so long as they were caged and healthy.
Bird flu has devastated Egypt's poultry industry. But the tragedy of the disease is most tangible in the Nile Delta region north of Cairo, the nation's breadbasket and now an incubator of fear and bird flu. The human cases of the virus have shown up primarily in three Delta governates, including the location of this village, in Menufiyya, where a 16-year-old girl died after coming in contact with infected birds.
"Every house has chickens," said Elmurss Suliman Khamis, whose family slaughtered their chickens and now supplements its meals with beans, fried and boiled. "We can't live without chickens. We actually live with chickens." Indeed, they live with chickens, ducks and pigeons in their homes.
Abdullah said she runs her household on 200 Egyptian pounds a month, the equivalent of about $35. A pound of meat costs about $2, way out of her price range for everyday meals. She is 43 years old, with two sons, two daughters and a husband. Their home amounts to four cement rooms, bare concrete walls, concrete floors covered by soiled and tattered rugs, and a fetid back pen where the birds run amid construction debris and their own feces.
"Yes, we are eating them," she said, when asked if she worried about bird flu. "What should we do? Throw them in the street?"
The road into this town is packed, rutted dirt, cutting through narrow alleys, past two- and three-story homes, some made of wood and mud, some concrete. This is a farming village surrounded by fields of wheat, which once provided enough income to survive but now must be subsidized by other jobs, primarily low-paying government work.
To make ends meet, everyone here also raised birds.
"May God help us so we can raise chickens again," said Saida Suliman, who estimated that she was in her 60s and who recently slaughtered dozens of birds she raised in pen outside her front door.
Not all of the villagers have been as casual as Abdullah. At first, villagers said, they did not believe the government warnings about bird flu. They said that when inspectors came through, looking for birds, farmers packed them up in crates and carted them out to the fields. The government offered 5 Egyptian pounds per bird it killed, but either the villagers did not believe they would get paid or they felt their birds were worth more at market, which in many cases they were, a poultry expert said.
But then birds started to die. And then people started to get sick. Word spread quickly that some children were at risk. Some people began killing their birds or, in the parlance of the village, "rescue them" before they became ill.
Freezers were packed with the slaughtered birds, and for a time people lived off them. But those stocks are beginning to run out.
Suliman killed her flock after some of the birds began to die. Now she is distraught because she has no idea what she will feed the guests at her son Muhammad's wedding in July. "Can we start raising chickens again?" she asked. "What is the groom going to eat?"
Across the train tracks that cut through the farmland, and across a four-lane roadway, Rateb village sits on the bank of a canal that slices through the farmland. The banks of the canal are thick with white feathers and rotting carcasses of birds. Children ran barefoot on the nearby grass and kicked soccer balls through the feathers. The people who live along the canal insisted they had killed all their birds, but feathers dusted the dirt road in front of their homes and spilled from their homes in drainage that flowed into the street.
Some people conceded that they kept some birds, mostly ducks, after their chickens began to get sick and die. They said they killed the chickens and dumped the dead chickens in the canal. Government officials here say that keeping ducks is even more dangerous than chickens, because they can carry the viruses without dying, but the villagers here say they believe what they see. And what they see are healthy ducks.
"I have chickens, you want to see?" said Sayed Abu Tahon, 24, as he walked by a group of ducks and pigeons feeding outside a house in his village. While the government has cautioned everyone to keep their birds caged and guarded from wild fowl, few actually do.
Abu Tahon walked down a path toward a green field of grain, past two water buffaloes and a little girl passing by on a white donkey. His home, up a steep flight of stairs, was four rooms, shared with his wife, his daughter, his brother, his brother's wife and their three children. He said that he works as a laborer and if he is lucky, finds employment 10 days out of the month.
"I depend more on my chickens than my work," he said throwing open a door onto an open-air balcony loaded with baby chickens. The cement floor was layered in droppings.
Little children in flip-flops ran out to dart after the baby birds, kicking up feathers and feces.
"I think it's a rumor," he said, stoically, his wife by his side, when asked if he worried about bird flu. "I'm not convinced, I've not seen any infected birds."
Downstairs, on the side of the house, he opened a metal door to show perhaps a dozen chickens. More children played in the dirt nearby and women pumped water from a pool to wash dishes and bowls.
"Most of the people who slaughtered their chickens did it because of the rumor," he said. "They believed it. I didn't."
Abeer Allam contributed reporting for this article from Cairo.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/04/13/news/journal.php
