Nigeria struggling to cope with bird flu and more scares in Europe

Feb 14 2006

The lethal strain of H5N1 bird flu has now reached Nigeria and there is concern as officials there in their efforts to prevent any human infections are having difficulty convincing many poor people not to eat dead poultry.

There are now four confirmed cases of H5N1 in birds in three Nigerian states, and authorities suspect outbreaks of bird flu in five other states, some of them hundreds of kilometres from where the original cases were detected.

Abdulsalam Nasidi, who is in charge of efforts to prevent bird flu from spreading to humans in Nigeria says health officials are facing problems persuading people to change their habits particularly in poorer areas.

The majority of Nigerians are it seems unaware of the threat of bird flu and many have continued to handle sick and dead birds, exacerbating the risk of infection.

They are reluctant to believe the habits of centuries are now a dangerous practice.

To date there have been no confirmed human cases of bird flu in Nigeria, but the virus has killed at least 91 people in Asia and the Middle East according to the World Health Organisation.

In Greece a man is currently undergoing tests for suspected bird flu, the man is a hunter who killed three wild ducks a week ago.

A 15-year-old boy had also been tested after developing flu-like symptoms, but the results were negative.

The European Union, has confirmed the presence of the virus in wild birds for the first time.

Currently H5N1 remains a disease of birds and humans only become infected by handling dead or sick birds and poultry.

Experts however have long feared the virus could mutate into a form that can spread between people and cause a pandemic that could kill millions, and health officials are implementing measures such as bird culling and testing to try to stop the spread of the virus.

In Hong Kong government workers are carrying out searches of rural areas as they enforce a ban on backyard fowl in an effort to try to stop bird flu taking hold in one of the world's most densely populated cities.

Many are finding hard to accept the conditions and are threatening to defy them.

Meanwhile European farmers are anticipating poultry consumption to plummet as consumer fears rise as national health authorities moved to tackle the spread of new incidents of the virus following cases in swans in Greece and Italy, as well as in birds in Russia.

Greek and Italian industry officials have both reported that poultry sales have plunged considerably; the poultry and egg industry in the EU is estimated to be worth 20 billion euros ($23.8 billion).

While German authorities are contemplating a ban on keeping poultry outside, Spain was reviewing its controls and Bulgaria has cordoned off wetlands where infected birds have been found.

Russia and Bulgaria, have already had more confirmed outbreaks,and Romania says it has found more suspected cases.

Slovenia too has sent samples from swans for laboratory testing.

According to the World Health Organisation’s latest figures the number of human deaths has risen to 91, from 169 infections, and no new human cases have been confirmed in Europe.

Greece has extended the monitoring zone for wild birds and poultry from a three kilometre to 10-km zone around the sites where three dead swans were found last week. Officials say small poultry producers have been told to move birds into covered areas.

The European poultry industry is expected to be badly affected and some expect free range poultry flocks in the UK could be forced indoors as the government moves to tighten controls to limit any outbreak of avian flu.

In the UK the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is currently exploring measures to limit and eradicate an outbreak of avian flu.

The government is planning legislation to implement the EU avian influenza directive by mid-summer which allows for new disease surveillance measures including flock sampling programs and the slaughtering of birds found to have a low pathogenic strain of the virus.

The British poultry industry has already been damaged by a slump in wholesale poultry prices after Italian processors dumped produce in the British market last year when demand for poultry fell sharply in Italy last year amid an avian flu health scare.

European poultry manufacturers have scaled back production as demand for poultry has fallen throughout the region.