Enlarge imageBy Daniel Flynn
KANO, Nigeria (Reuters) - Nigeria has started testing people who have fallen ill close to where the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus was found, a World Health Organisation (WHO) official said on Saturday.
No human cases of bird flu have been reported in Africa’s most populous country, where H5N1 has killed tens of thousands of poultry, but it is hard for authorities to monitor because of high mortality rates from many other diseases.
"Our field officers are already there, in those farms and nearby. We are monitoring and taking samples. We are concerned about the possibility of a human case," said Lola Sadiq, in charge of coordinating the bird flu response at WHO headquarters in Abuja.
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"This is a tropical environment where there are lots of diseases, so we need to watch closely and take a lot of swabs. They will be tested here first and if there is any suspicion (of bird flu) they will send samples abroad," she said.
Sadiq said the WHO had received information about two people who were feared to have contracted the disease in Kaduna state, close to Sambawa Farms where one of the poultry samples that tested positive for H5N1 came from.
But she said there was no certainty for now and authorities wanted to avoid causing panic.
Experts fear the H5N1 strain, which has killed at least 88 people in Asia and the Middle East since early 2003, may mutate into a form that can spread from human to human. They fear this could cause a global flu pandemic that could kill millions.
FIRST AFRICAN OUTBREAK
The outbreak of H5N1 in Nigeria -- its first known appearance on the continent -- has worried health experts but left almost all those in the affected areas in Kaduna, Kano and Plateau states ignorant of the danger facing them.
H5N1 has been confirmed on four farms in the three northern states, and other farmers and villagers are reporting mass deaths of poultry.
However, trade in live fowl is unabated in the region and people are moving chickens around in public transport as usual.
In the countryside, farmers in normal clothes and sandals are using their bare hands to throw dead and dying chickens on fires while village children stand by to watch. They say they do not know the nature of the illness killing the birds.
One key challenge facing authorities in the fight against bird flu is that poultry is everywhere in Nigeria -- in people’s village backyards, in city streets, by the side of the road, in crowded markets, on buses.
Chicken is a staple of the Nigerian diet and, as in much of sub-Saharan Africa, most poultry is bought live and slaughtered at home because people have no access to refrigerators.
In rural areas, most people are far too poor to buy newspapers or television sets. In most villages there is no electricity, running water or paved road. Health services are almost non-existent.
The government has ordered suspect birds culled and suspect farms quarantined, but the measures have not been implemented yet and on the ground there has been little sign of a concrete response from authorities.
The government also said it would pay 250 naira (one pound) for every chicken culled in the campaign against bird flu, but it has not given any details of how the scheme will work in practice.
(Additional reporting by Estelle Shirbon in Abuja)
