Shiloh
Editor, Senior Moderator
Source: http://www.vanguardngr.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6573&Itemid=0
We are still playing chicken with bird flu
Written by Sola Ogundipe & Chioma Obinna,
Friday, 11 April 2008
By SOMETIME in 1994, following information on the outbreak and spread of Avian Influenza (AI) in South East Asia, the Nigerian Government was compelled to put in place skeletal prevention measures aimed at warding off possible spread of the disorder to Nigeria. But the effort was lackluster, indecisive and ultimately ineffective as it was only a matter of time before the dreaded pestilence reached Nigeria. In its characteristically dramatic manner, AI announced its presence in the country in grand style. The disease outbreak was first reported on 22nd January 2006 at Sambawa farms, Jaji, Kaduna, Kaduna State and confirmed by the OIE World Reference Laboratory at Padova, Italy a fortnight later. The disorder spread like wild fire, ravaging poultry in its path. It was a humbling episode and a rude awakening for a slumbering nation. Indeed bird flu had come to roost in Nigeria!
This singular event went down in history as the first confirmed outbreak of the dreaded pathogenic avian influenza virus (H5N1) in sub-Sahara Africa and has since become a reference point of sorts. In the thick of the 2006 outbreak, the federal government swung into action with a more determined emergency preparedness plan comprising a Standard Operating Procedures developed by the Federal Department of Livestock and Pest Control Services.
Nationwide, there was heavy decimation of chickens and other poultry stocks. The outbreak caused a scare that led to massive boycott of poultry and poultry products. Chicken, turkey, duck and their eggs rapidly disappeared from the menu in almost every Nigerian home. Poultry farmers suffered unquantifiable losses in investment.
The industrial world banned poultry products from Nigeria even as fears began making the rounds that the country had become a permanent host to the disease pathogen.
Today, more than two years down the line, what lessons have been learned? Have Nigerians come to terms with the specter of the avian influenza outbreak? What is the current situation? What measures are being taken in the wake of the antecedents of the looming pandemic threat? What are the current and future plans in place to contain this threat? Saturday Vanguard?s health crew - Sola Ogundipe & Chioma Obinna, in this retrospective look at the dawn of avian influenza in Nigeria, went to feel the pulse of the people about this scourge. From their findings, it is obvious the nation is still running a race against time in the wake of the reality of a world in the grips of a looming avian influenza pandemic.
?Bird flu? What is that?? asked Beatrice, a young housewife when confronted at the Ipodo market on Easter Sunday as she was about making a purchase of frozen turkey parts. ?My brother, I have no business with bird flu or any flu for that matter. What I know is that it is Easter and my family must eat chicken or turkey. I am only buying the turkey parts because live chicken is too expensive and this is what will be enough for the whole family.? If Beatrice response was abrupt, Ifeoma, an unemployed mother of three was even more dramatic. ?You people have come with your wahala. Which one is bird flu again? Are we not going to eat meat again? The other time some people were talking about a disease in cows (mad cow disease) and tried to discourage people from eating beef. They said chicken is better and we faced chicken, now you are saying chicken has flu and should be carefully handled. May be the next thing we will hear is that fish can give people fever. Na wah O.?
ImageAt the Agodi poultry market, in Ibadan during the last Easter period, Saturday Vanguard witnessed chicken traders making brisk business. When asked to comment on the bird flu issue, a poultry trader bared her mind thus: ?O yes we are aware, but we are not worried about an outbreak. We look out for the clinical signs including coughing, depression, reduction in eggs production as well as decreased appetite and other nervous problems. We know that things like swollen combs and wattles, which change colour from bright red to either blue or purple; sneezing; diarrhoea and sudden death are suspicious of bird flu.?
In her view, the trader stressed: ?Anybody who is still afraid of eating chicken or turkey or eggs is entirely on his own. There is no danger at all. Even during the outbreak in 2006, people were still eating chicken. Did they die? If eating chicken or turkey or eggs could give you the disease, then I can tell you that three-quarters of Nigerians would have got the disease by now.?
Allaying the fear that eating chicken and other poultry products like eggs is dangerous, Iya Ahmed, another chicken trader at the Breweries poultry market in Lagos pointed to the importance of observance of proper hygiene which she argued remains the most important form of protection against the disease. She said many of their members had received series of enlightenment talks about the importance of thoroughly washing of hands before and after handling and processing poultry products while highlighting the need to cook poultry products very well before consumption. ?The virus cannot withstand high temperature. So apart from observing good hygiene with poultry products, cooking and frying kills the virus and there is no danger of infection from handling a healthy bird.?
However, There appears to be no respite in the avian influenza (a.k.a. bird flu, avian flu) saga as Chinese health authorities confirmed earlier this week a case of human-to-human contact of the pathogenic disorder in Jiangsu province of the Asian country. According to a publication in the medical journal The Lancet, two men who caught the disease in China in December last year, have proved that H5N1 may yet portend a human avian influenza pandemic.
As fears continue to mount over future bird flu strains, Saturday Vanguard gathered that it may be just a question of time before a new kind of bird flu that is well-adapted to humans emerges based on the latest human-human case involving the 52 year old man and his 24 year old son who contacted the H5N1 virus within a week of each other.
Though the young man died, the father has survived so far thanks to treatment with anti-viral drugs and a trial vaccine. At no point in time has the possibility of human-to-human transmission of bird flu been excluded, but confirmation of the Chinese brings into sharp focus the reality of a global human pogrom ? courtesy H5N1. Already, doctors at Vietnam?s Hospital for Tropical Diseases have warned that whatever the underlying determinants, in the event of continuous experience of widespread, uncontrolled outbreaks of H5N1 in poultry, the appearance of strains well-adapted to human beings might just be matter of time.
Experts agree that while it may be hard to believe that an event as simple and mundane as a visit to a poultry market may prove fatal for the unwary person, but that is plain truth. Even if one does not come into direct contact with infected fowl, there is still a risk of exposure if one contacts an infected person.
In reality, the spreading of the H5N1 virus between humans has already happened in several countries including Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam and Pakistan. Mostly, the source of the contagion was found in the blood samples of family members who had been in close contact with infected fowl. Moreover, in these cases the virus failed to endemically spread throughout the community. However scientists now fear that the virus is capable of mutating to become pandemic.
In view of concerns about the potential for more widespread infection in the human population, public health authorities closely monitor outbreaks of human illness associated with avian influenza.
While evidence abounds to indicate that the virus does not spread easily from birds to humans, the ability of the H5N1 virus to cause rare but severe disease in humans is well documented. As the main source of high class animal protein in Nigeria, poultry is one industry in the agriculture sector with real economic potential apart from crop farming. Poultry is the means of livelihood for an estimated two million families especially the rural populace, producing at least one billion table eggs and about 80,000 metric tons of poultry meat for human consumption annually.
In a country that is seriously battling with malaria and the spectre of an HIV/AIDS epidemic in addition to tuberculosis, respiratory infections and other serious infectious diseases, the added threat of a bird flu pandemic with its attendant risks to human health and livelihood is one that gives great cause for great concern and demands immediate action.
At the height of the 2006 outbreak, Dr. Lola Sadiq, Head of Disease Prevention and Control Unit at the World Health Organization (WHO) office in Abuja and Coordinator/Member, Ministerial Committee on Bird Flu Response in Nigeria had awarded a pass mark to the coordinated response to protect human and animal health in the wake of the bird flu pandemic threat. But in conclusion, she issued a warning: ?For the battle to be effectively won in Nigeria, all hands must be on deck to curtail its spread and possibly eradicate it completely.?
In his own view, Dr. Deji Folutile, a veterinary doctor opined that no effort should be spared in limiting the transmission of the bird flu pathogen to humans and prevents the disease hindering the progress already made in poultry farming. He argued that the veterinarian, the battle against the viral disease which can also be contracted by human beings should not be left alone to government and other international agencies like UNICEF, WHO and FAO. ?Every citizen must see it as a challenge to public health. If we have this in our consciousness and pursue the course vigorously, then the battle is half won.? Folutile urged Nigerians not see avian influenza only in the light of a challenge for poultry farmers and other stakeholders in poultry business since poultry is still one of the major sources of protein in Nigeria.
In certain circles, the issue of approach to avian influenza was compared to HIV & AIDS. ?Avian Influenza should be treated like HIV/AIDS, both members of the public and the media professionals are tackling it from every angle and we can all see the positive effects of such a battle. Bird flu virus (H5NI) is also a dangerous disease and should be seen like HIV particularly in birds, but with a difference in that, it can attack both birds and humans.
So this should even make it a more important issue that needs the attention of everybody.?
But lack of knowledge on how to safely handle poultry, particularly among backyard poultry farmers, is still a major problem in Nigeria. There is also general confusion as to where the disease comes from. Habits that are harmful are still practiced.
In the rural areas, man and chickens often share the same abode. Even in urban set ups like Lagos, chickens and other domestic birds are still bought live from the market are handled without due recourse to protective measures. After a bird?s throat is slit, its blood is allowed to sprinkle all over the yard.
The blood is not washed away, nor are the remains of the bird properly disposed of. Home-grown chickens generally roam about the living quarters in the rural areas where they defecate, with children and adults alike at risk of carrying the faeces into their homes.
Since the last outbreak in 2006, there has been no sustained campaign on bird flu prevention and management anywhere in the country. Backyard farms are still a potential threat and it is doubtful if there can be a realistic strategy of controlling the spread of bird flu or other zoonotic illnesses of social significance unless there is a way of informing, motivating and mobilising backyard farmers to take measures to control and prevent the disease.
Meanwhile, the Nigerian Veterinary Medical Association (NVMA) has affirmed the need for government to ensure the timely payment of compensation to farmers affected by the dreaded Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI).
In a communiqu? they issued at the end of the 44th annual national congress of the association in Warri, they declared this as very important in the control of this dreaded disease affecting poultry. The body declared that similarly the government should have an efficient disease control emer-gency plan for emerging/ zoonotic diseases such as African Swine Fever (ASF) and Tuberculosis that is backed up by a Disease Control Emergency Fund that could be easily and promptly accessed by relevant Institutions in case of any outbreak of such diseases.
As a result of many emerging zoonotic diseases, the body declared the need to review the existing laws as well as enact new ones in order to make the animal health care delivery system in the country more efficient. It urges that adequate mechanisms should be put in place for the enforcement of these laws.
We are still playing chicken with bird flu
Written by Sola Ogundipe & Chioma Obinna,
Friday, 11 April 2008
By SOMETIME in 1994, following information on the outbreak and spread of Avian Influenza (AI) in South East Asia, the Nigerian Government was compelled to put in place skeletal prevention measures aimed at warding off possible spread of the disorder to Nigeria. But the effort was lackluster, indecisive and ultimately ineffective as it was only a matter of time before the dreaded pestilence reached Nigeria. In its characteristically dramatic manner, AI announced its presence in the country in grand style. The disease outbreak was first reported on 22nd January 2006 at Sambawa farms, Jaji, Kaduna, Kaduna State and confirmed by the OIE World Reference Laboratory at Padova, Italy a fortnight later. The disorder spread like wild fire, ravaging poultry in its path. It was a humbling episode and a rude awakening for a slumbering nation. Indeed bird flu had come to roost in Nigeria!
This singular event went down in history as the first confirmed outbreak of the dreaded pathogenic avian influenza virus (H5N1) in sub-Sahara Africa and has since become a reference point of sorts. In the thick of the 2006 outbreak, the federal government swung into action with a more determined emergency preparedness plan comprising a Standard Operating Procedures developed by the Federal Department of Livestock and Pest Control Services.
Nationwide, there was heavy decimation of chickens and other poultry stocks. The outbreak caused a scare that led to massive boycott of poultry and poultry products. Chicken, turkey, duck and their eggs rapidly disappeared from the menu in almost every Nigerian home. Poultry farmers suffered unquantifiable losses in investment.
The industrial world banned poultry products from Nigeria even as fears began making the rounds that the country had become a permanent host to the disease pathogen.
Today, more than two years down the line, what lessons have been learned? Have Nigerians come to terms with the specter of the avian influenza outbreak? What is the current situation? What measures are being taken in the wake of the antecedents of the looming pandemic threat? What are the current and future plans in place to contain this threat? Saturday Vanguard?s health crew - Sola Ogundipe & Chioma Obinna, in this retrospective look at the dawn of avian influenza in Nigeria, went to feel the pulse of the people about this scourge. From their findings, it is obvious the nation is still running a race against time in the wake of the reality of a world in the grips of a looming avian influenza pandemic.
?Bird flu? What is that?? asked Beatrice, a young housewife when confronted at the Ipodo market on Easter Sunday as she was about making a purchase of frozen turkey parts. ?My brother, I have no business with bird flu or any flu for that matter. What I know is that it is Easter and my family must eat chicken or turkey. I am only buying the turkey parts because live chicken is too expensive and this is what will be enough for the whole family.? If Beatrice response was abrupt, Ifeoma, an unemployed mother of three was even more dramatic. ?You people have come with your wahala. Which one is bird flu again? Are we not going to eat meat again? The other time some people were talking about a disease in cows (mad cow disease) and tried to discourage people from eating beef. They said chicken is better and we faced chicken, now you are saying chicken has flu and should be carefully handled. May be the next thing we will hear is that fish can give people fever. Na wah O.?
ImageAt the Agodi poultry market, in Ibadan during the last Easter period, Saturday Vanguard witnessed chicken traders making brisk business. When asked to comment on the bird flu issue, a poultry trader bared her mind thus: ?O yes we are aware, but we are not worried about an outbreak. We look out for the clinical signs including coughing, depression, reduction in eggs production as well as decreased appetite and other nervous problems. We know that things like swollen combs and wattles, which change colour from bright red to either blue or purple; sneezing; diarrhoea and sudden death are suspicious of bird flu.?
In her view, the trader stressed: ?Anybody who is still afraid of eating chicken or turkey or eggs is entirely on his own. There is no danger at all. Even during the outbreak in 2006, people were still eating chicken. Did they die? If eating chicken or turkey or eggs could give you the disease, then I can tell you that three-quarters of Nigerians would have got the disease by now.?
Allaying the fear that eating chicken and other poultry products like eggs is dangerous, Iya Ahmed, another chicken trader at the Breweries poultry market in Lagos pointed to the importance of observance of proper hygiene which she argued remains the most important form of protection against the disease. She said many of their members had received series of enlightenment talks about the importance of thoroughly washing of hands before and after handling and processing poultry products while highlighting the need to cook poultry products very well before consumption. ?The virus cannot withstand high temperature. So apart from observing good hygiene with poultry products, cooking and frying kills the virus and there is no danger of infection from handling a healthy bird.?
However, There appears to be no respite in the avian influenza (a.k.a. bird flu, avian flu) saga as Chinese health authorities confirmed earlier this week a case of human-to-human contact of the pathogenic disorder in Jiangsu province of the Asian country. According to a publication in the medical journal The Lancet, two men who caught the disease in China in December last year, have proved that H5N1 may yet portend a human avian influenza pandemic.
As fears continue to mount over future bird flu strains, Saturday Vanguard gathered that it may be just a question of time before a new kind of bird flu that is well-adapted to humans emerges based on the latest human-human case involving the 52 year old man and his 24 year old son who contacted the H5N1 virus within a week of each other.
Though the young man died, the father has survived so far thanks to treatment with anti-viral drugs and a trial vaccine. At no point in time has the possibility of human-to-human transmission of bird flu been excluded, but confirmation of the Chinese brings into sharp focus the reality of a global human pogrom ? courtesy H5N1. Already, doctors at Vietnam?s Hospital for Tropical Diseases have warned that whatever the underlying determinants, in the event of continuous experience of widespread, uncontrolled outbreaks of H5N1 in poultry, the appearance of strains well-adapted to human beings might just be matter of time.
Experts agree that while it may be hard to believe that an event as simple and mundane as a visit to a poultry market may prove fatal for the unwary person, but that is plain truth. Even if one does not come into direct contact with infected fowl, there is still a risk of exposure if one contacts an infected person.
In reality, the spreading of the H5N1 virus between humans has already happened in several countries including Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam and Pakistan. Mostly, the source of the contagion was found in the blood samples of family members who had been in close contact with infected fowl. Moreover, in these cases the virus failed to endemically spread throughout the community. However scientists now fear that the virus is capable of mutating to become pandemic.
In view of concerns about the potential for more widespread infection in the human population, public health authorities closely monitor outbreaks of human illness associated with avian influenza.
While evidence abounds to indicate that the virus does not spread easily from birds to humans, the ability of the H5N1 virus to cause rare but severe disease in humans is well documented. As the main source of high class animal protein in Nigeria, poultry is one industry in the agriculture sector with real economic potential apart from crop farming. Poultry is the means of livelihood for an estimated two million families especially the rural populace, producing at least one billion table eggs and about 80,000 metric tons of poultry meat for human consumption annually.
In a country that is seriously battling with malaria and the spectre of an HIV/AIDS epidemic in addition to tuberculosis, respiratory infections and other serious infectious diseases, the added threat of a bird flu pandemic with its attendant risks to human health and livelihood is one that gives great cause for great concern and demands immediate action.
At the height of the 2006 outbreak, Dr. Lola Sadiq, Head of Disease Prevention and Control Unit at the World Health Organization (WHO) office in Abuja and Coordinator/Member, Ministerial Committee on Bird Flu Response in Nigeria had awarded a pass mark to the coordinated response to protect human and animal health in the wake of the bird flu pandemic threat. But in conclusion, she issued a warning: ?For the battle to be effectively won in Nigeria, all hands must be on deck to curtail its spread and possibly eradicate it completely.?
In his own view, Dr. Deji Folutile, a veterinary doctor opined that no effort should be spared in limiting the transmission of the bird flu pathogen to humans and prevents the disease hindering the progress already made in poultry farming. He argued that the veterinarian, the battle against the viral disease which can also be contracted by human beings should not be left alone to government and other international agencies like UNICEF, WHO and FAO. ?Every citizen must see it as a challenge to public health. If we have this in our consciousness and pursue the course vigorously, then the battle is half won.? Folutile urged Nigerians not see avian influenza only in the light of a challenge for poultry farmers and other stakeholders in poultry business since poultry is still one of the major sources of protein in Nigeria.
In certain circles, the issue of approach to avian influenza was compared to HIV & AIDS. ?Avian Influenza should be treated like HIV/AIDS, both members of the public and the media professionals are tackling it from every angle and we can all see the positive effects of such a battle. Bird flu virus (H5NI) is also a dangerous disease and should be seen like HIV particularly in birds, but with a difference in that, it can attack both birds and humans.
So this should even make it a more important issue that needs the attention of everybody.?
But lack of knowledge on how to safely handle poultry, particularly among backyard poultry farmers, is still a major problem in Nigeria. There is also general confusion as to where the disease comes from. Habits that are harmful are still practiced.
In the rural areas, man and chickens often share the same abode. Even in urban set ups like Lagos, chickens and other domestic birds are still bought live from the market are handled without due recourse to protective measures. After a bird?s throat is slit, its blood is allowed to sprinkle all over the yard.
The blood is not washed away, nor are the remains of the bird properly disposed of. Home-grown chickens generally roam about the living quarters in the rural areas where they defecate, with children and adults alike at risk of carrying the faeces into their homes.
Since the last outbreak in 2006, there has been no sustained campaign on bird flu prevention and management anywhere in the country. Backyard farms are still a potential threat and it is doubtful if there can be a realistic strategy of controlling the spread of bird flu or other zoonotic illnesses of social significance unless there is a way of informing, motivating and mobilising backyard farmers to take measures to control and prevent the disease.
Meanwhile, the Nigerian Veterinary Medical Association (NVMA) has affirmed the need for government to ensure the timely payment of compensation to farmers affected by the dreaded Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI).
In a communiqu? they issued at the end of the 44th annual national congress of the association in Warri, they declared this as very important in the control of this dreaded disease affecting poultry. The body declared that similarly the government should have an efficient disease control emer-gency plan for emerging/ zoonotic diseases such as African Swine Fever (ASF) and Tuberculosis that is backed up by a Disease Control Emergency Fund that could be easily and promptly accessed by relevant Institutions in case of any outbreak of such diseases.
As a result of many emerging zoonotic diseases, the body declared the need to review the existing laws as well as enact new ones in order to make the animal health care delivery system in the country more efficient. It urges that adequate mechanisms should be put in place for the enforcement of these laws.