TANZANIA - Zanzibar burns 61,000 eggs in bid to check bird flu

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TANZANIA: Zanzibar burns 61,000 eggs in bid to check bird flu

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</td></tr></tbody></table>STONE TOWN, 15 Aug 2006 (IRIN) - Authorities on Tanzania's semi-autonomous island of Zanzibar incinerated 61,000 chicken eggs on Tuesday in their continuing bid to check the threat of bird flu to the community.

"We seized the egg consignment imported from the Tanzanian mainland commercial capital of Dar es Salaam last weekend," Khatib Suleiman Bakari, the deputy minister of the Zanzibar Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and the Environment, told reporters.

He said three people would be charged in court with the illegal importation of the eggs. He said the island's business community had continued to import poultry products despite an indefinite ban imposed in 2005.

The chairman of the Zanzibar bird-flu taskforce, Kassim Gharib, said if found guilty, the culprits could be fined at least US $50, six months in prison, or both.

The taskforce is part of the island's Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock. In April, it confiscated at least 400 chickens smuggled into Zanzibar.

"Since bird flu has not been controlled in many countries, the ban of poultry products from outside Zanzibar remains," Kassim said.

In June, authorities in Zanzibar intensified efforts to control the importation of poultry products, including those from the Tanzanian mainland. Hundreds of smuggled chickens were burned after importers failed to return them to their place of purchase.

The deadly H5N1 strain of avian flu has been found in several African countries. The poultry industry in Asia and a number of European countries has been ravaged by the disease, which has claimed dozens of lives.

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http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=55124

 

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Re: TANZANIA: Zanzibar burns 61,000 eggs in bid to check bird flu

Re: TANZANIA: Zanzibar burns 61,000 eggs in bid to check bird flu

snip from above>...."Since bird flu has not been controlled in many countries, the ban of poultry products from outside Zanzibar remains," Kassim said.


snip>.....The deadly H5N1 strain of avian flu has been found in several African countries.

Which countries? The same as before the news stopped?

 

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Re: TANZANIA: Zanzibar burns 61,000 eggs in bid to check bird flu

Re: TANZANIA: Zanzibar burns 61,000 eggs in bid to check bird flu

This probably isn't all of them, I'm doing this from memory, so feel free to correct me.

Confirmed: Sudan, Nigeria, Niger, Cte d'Ivory, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Djibouti, Egypt

Suspected: Botswana, Zambia

There was also a cluster case in Algeria that was highly suspect, but I don't think they were ever tested. It was two brothers and was presented as TB, it happened right after Turkey and Iraq.


Edit: Is there a countries list here? If not I can retrieve my copy from that other forum.

 

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Re: TANZANIA: Zanzibar burns 61,000 eggs in bid to check bird flu

Re: TANZANIA: Zanzibar burns 61,000 eggs in bid to check bird flu

Looks like from coast to coast across the midsection for that region of the continent one might postulate.

South Africa at the bottom and Egypt at the top of the continent.

No news on Egypt in awhile. They had a few sporatic human deaths then zilch.

The only reason to harp on Africa is all the news paper story wrap up quotes...."If BF ever reached Africa and became endemic... a pandemic would almost be a certanity.".

 

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Re: TANZANIA: Zanzibar burns 61,000 eggs in bid to check bird flu

Re: TANZANIA: Zanzibar burns 61,000 eggs in bid to check bird flu

When they refer to Africa that way they are concerned that H5N1 will become embedded in the AIDS population. Since AIDS causes a suppressed immune response H5N1 won't kill as quickly and will stay in the human body much longer than normal mutating and spreading to many before killing it's host.

Then there is always the lack of medical care and the primitive lifestyles that many live in Africa.

 

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Re: TANZANIA: Zanzibar burns 61,000 eggs in bid to check bird flu

Re: TANZANIA: Zanzibar burns 61,000 eggs in bid to check bird flu

Yes, a lot of it, from Webster, to Osterholm and to the WHO.

Just prior to his death, Dr Lee of the WHO invited a Kenyan Poet to read to the assembly the following poem

After the the Director-General's speech, the Assembly was introduced to a passionate young HIV/AIDS activist from Kenya, Johnson Mwakanze. Dr Lee wrote, "This is a voice that must be heard. He speaks for the 40 million people living with HIV, those living in the shadow of stigma."
Johnson Mwakanze spoke of his experience through a poem, "Underneath the Veil":

"This one thing has destroyed families,
This one thing has destroyed marriages,
This one thing has killed men.
It is not HIV
It is not AIDS
... It is stigmatisation.
I say STIGMATISATION."

http://www.flutrackers.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6207&highlight=stigmatisation

 

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Re: TANZANIA: Zanzibar burns 61,000 eggs in bid to check bird flu

Re: TANZANIA: Zanzibar burns 61,000 eggs in bid to check bird flu

Here is one article....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4444940.stm

Aids may help spread of bird flu
<!--Smvb--> <table> <tbody><tr> <td valign="bottom"> <!--Smvb--> By Roland Pease
BBC science correspondent <!--Emvb--> </td> </tr> </tbody></table>
<!--Emvb--> Bird flu could readily mutate into a pandemic form if it infects people with Aids, a flu expert has warned.
Dr Robert Webster said it was possible people with Aids, who have depressed immune systems, could harbour the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu.
This would potentially give it the opportunity to become better adapted - and more dangerous - to humans.
Dr Webster was speaking at a conference organised by the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.
At present, H5N1 cannot pass easily from human to human. It has so far infected around 125 people in South East Asia, but most of these have had close contact with infected birds.
Experts fear that the widespread infection of birds in this region, coupled with the close mixing of birds and people, could lead to the virus evolving to pose a more deadly threat.
But Dr Webster, of St Jude Children's Research Hospital im Memphis, said the key could be when H5N1 reaches East Africa, where HIV/Aids is rife.
Cannot clear virus
He said experience with immune-compromised cancer patients at his hospital had showed they are unable to clear normal flu virus from their systems, and can shed copies of the virus for weeks.
The same could be expected of AIDS patients coming down with H5N1, he said.
"We're all very worried by the prospect," he told the BBC.
Reproducing over a long period inside a human would be the ideal conditions for more infectious forms of the virus to develop.
H5N1 has not reached East Africa yet, but it is the final destination for many birds currently migrating from infected areas.
Officials at the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation expect to arrive there soon.
They believe that because the social conditions are close to those in Asia, and farming practices are similar, the virus could take a grip among poultry as it has in Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia and China.
Health expert Laurie Garrett adds that with malaria, tuberculosis and HIV already widespread in Africa, it will be difficult to single out the symptoms of bird flu in new victims - high fever and nausea.
The situation is compounded by the parlous state of the health systems across the continent.
The direct effect of H5N1 on people with Aids is hard to predict.
The H5N1 virus overstimulates the immune system, and many of its powerful effects are caused by what medical expert call a "cytokine storm", after the immune molecules excited by the disease.
It was the cytokine storm that overwhelmed so many victims of the 1918 flu pandemic. Aids patients may be spared that fate.
But equally possible, with their immune defences down, they could succumb easily to the disease.
"In that situation," said Laurie Garrett, "vast populations of HIV positive people could be obliterated by the pandemic flu."

Story from BBC NEWS:

 

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Re: TANZANIA: Zanzibar burns 61,000 eggs in bid to check bird flu

Re: TANZANIA: Zanzibar burns 61,000 eggs in bid to check bird flu

Shannon,

Do you remember a report about an AIDS patient that had H5N1 and it went undetected for months? I seem to remember you commenting on it at CE.