Enlarge imageBy Daniel Flynn
DANBARE, Nigeria (Reuters) - Nigeria scrambled on Saturday to discover whether people who had fallen ill close to where the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus was found had caught the disease and farmers culled thousands more sick chickens.
No human case of bird flu has been confirmed 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 logistical problems and the high mortality from other diseases.
"There are a few suspected cases ... We’re trying to locate them but our sources can’t provide us with addresses for now," said Abdulsalam Nasidi, who is in charge of the response to bird flu as a threat to humans at the federal Health Ministry.
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He said epidemiologists were searching for two people feared to have contracted bird flu in the northern state of Kaduna, close to Sambawa Farms where one of the poultry samples was found that tested positive for H5N1.
Samples have already been taken from people who are ill in the areas affected by bird flu. Should tests in Nigerian laboratories indicate the presence of bird flu, the samples would be sent abroad for further testing, Nasidi said.
Officials in the far northern state of Katsina said they suspected an outbreak of bird flu at a small poultry farm in the state capital, a few kilometres from the border with Niger.
A confirmed outbreak in Katsina would raise fears of the virus spreading into neighbouring countries. Niger is one of several African countries that have announced bans on imports of Nigerian poultry, but the bans will be hard to enforce.
Nasidi said the ministry had heard rumours of a suspected human case of bird flu in the south of the country but had no further details and was trying to check the reports.
If confirmed, this would be a major development as bird flu in poultry has so far only been confirmed in the northern states of Kaduna and Kano and the central state of Plateau.
FIRST AFRICAN OUTBREAK
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.
The outbreak of H5N1 in Nigeria is the first known appearance of the virus in Africa. The strain has been confirmed on four farms, and other farmers and villagers are reporting mass deaths of poultry.
At Phed Farm near the village of Danbare in Kano state -- close to Sovet Farm where one of the H5N1 samples came from -- farm workers in shorts and sandals were killing chickens with knives and using their bare hands to toss them into fires.
They said the farm had lost thousands of chickens in the past few days and they were culling the rest of the flock. Their hands and clothing were spattered with chicken blood and the only protective equipment they had were surgical face masks.
Information about bird flu and protection against it has been slow to filter out in the impoverished region.
Trade in live fowl is unabated and people are moving chickens around by public transport as usual. At the market in Kano, the state capital and Nigeria’s second-largest city, people were carrying poultry in baskets on their heads and tied to the handlebars of motorcycles.
As in most of sub-Saharan Africa, poultry are everywhere in Nigeria -- in villagers’ backyards, in city streets, by the side of the road, in crowded markets, on buses. Most poultry is bought live and slaughtered at home.
The government has ordered suspect birds culled and suspect farms quarantined, but in the field there has so far been little sign of a concrete response by the authorities.
(Additional reporting by Estelle Shirbon in Abuja)
