More Nigerian States Report Bird Flu Strain

By BASHIR ADIGUN

ABUJA, Nigeria – A bird flu strain has been found in two more Nigerian states, the Agricultural Ministry said Thursday.

The strain has been confirmed at two farms in Kano state and one in adjoining Plateau state, said Tope Ajakaiye, a ministry spokesman. Africa’s first documented case was reported Wednesday in neighboring Kaduna state, putting the total at three.

"The federal government is doing everything to contain the disease within the three centers that have been located," said Ajakaiye in a statement. Experts have questioned Africa’s ability to contain the health and economic threat posed by the H5N1 strain of bird flu, which has killed humans and forced other countries to destroy millions of birds.

Officials had reported the deaths of some 60,000 farm-raised birds in Kano, but as recently as Monday had said preliminary tests showed no bird flu there. It was not immediately clear Thursday how many of the 60,000 deaths were attributable to bird flu, and how many to another, as yet unidentified, disease.

Wednesday, Awalu Haruna, secretary of the Poultry Farmers’ Association of Kano, accused the government of being slow to respond to the epidemic of poultry deaths in the state.

"The government should have quarantined the affected farms to prevent further spread," he said. "But as I speak this has not been done. There is still movement of humans and birds in and out of these farms," Haruna said.

Thursday, Junaidu Maina, director of Nigeria’s livestock department said bird farms across the entire north of Africa’s most-populous nation are now under quarantine and a special assessment team was traveling around the region. Maina did not say to how many of Nigeria’s 36 states were under the quarantine order.

Nigeria’s neighbors Benin and Niger banned poultry imports from Nigeria Thursday and called on citizens to report any suspicious deaths among birds, either wild or domesticated.

Cameroon, which earlier banned fowl imports from Europe when the virus was confirmed there, said veterinary officials were meeting to determine a course of action. Chad, another Nigerian neighbor, announced no steps.

Nigeria said the United States pledged US$25 million to help combat the spread of the virus, while sending a team from its Atlanta, Georgia-based Center for Disease Control to help.

International experts from the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Health Organization and the OIE were to travel Friday to Nigeria to help, said Alex Thiermann, an OIE expert.

"The significance is that it’s a completely new continent that we need to be looking at," Thiermann said of H5N1′s arrival on the world’s poorest continent.

Experts are concerned that H5N1, which has caused human as well as bird deaths in Asia and spread to Europe and the Middle East, might mutate into a form spread easily among humans, triggering a human flu pandemic that could kill millions. So far, H5N1 has passed only from birds to humans, not from human to human.

Indonesia, meanwhile, reported Thursday that two women from the same town have contracted bird flu, senior Health Ministry official Hariadai Wibisono said in Jakarata, citing local laboratory tests. China said Wednesday that a 26-year-old woman had bird flu – the 11th known case in that country.

Sub-Saharan Africa, with about 600 million of the world’s poorest people, is particularly ill-equipped to deal with a major health crisis. With weak and impoverished government institutions in regions where many people keep chickens for badly needed food, experts say any mass killings of the animals – often a first step in controlling bird flu – will be difficult to pull off.

Thiermann noted that some African countries have "very weak" veterinary systems.

"It is absolutely essential to strengthen the veterinary infrastructures in order to have the capability for early detection and a rapid response," he said.

The World Health Organization said Nigeria has a poultry population of about 140 million and that the country’s overtaxed veterinary services needed international help, while calling on other African countries act quickly against any suspected outbreaks.

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Associated Press writers John Leicester in Paris and Oloche Samuel in Kano, Nigeria, contributed to this report.