Bird Flu Update #6

Nigerian doctors tested blood samples Sunday from two sick children suspected of carrying Africa's first human cases of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu, amid fears of a health catastrophe.

And, as international experts continued to arrive in the country in the wake of the discovery last week of Africa's first bird flu outbreak, Nigeria announced tougher controls to prevent the spread of the epidemic.

It may, however, be too late for two youngsters who fell sick last week on a poultry farm in the northern city of Kaduna, a short distance from a second farm which was quarantined after 45,000 poultry died from the disease.

"We've taken their samples, which are now undergoing some laboratory tests," said Nasidi Yakubu, a director from the federal health ministry deployed to northern Nigeria to monitor Africa's first outbreak of the disease.

Last week, Kaduna State officials told AFP that two children whose father bred turkeys, geese and chickens close to Sambawa Farm, which was the scene of Nigeria's first confirmed outbreak, had fallen ill and begun coughing up blood.

If they are confirmed as having been infected with H5N1 avian influenza, they will become the first African victims of what international health experts fear could develop into a widespread epidemic in Nigeria and beyond.

Bird flu has killed around 90 people since 2003, mainly in Asia, and has recently spread to Turkey, Europe and Africa.

Yakubu said the federal ministry is working closely with the World Health Organisation (WHO) to contain the outbreak, and had ordered emergency measures in Kaduna State, where the first African case was confirmed on Wednesday.

"We have ordered the disinfection of all chicken selling points and also the movement of birds of any kind into and out of the state has been banned," he told AFP by telephone from Kaduna city.

Meanwhile, Kaduna's neighbour Kano State has begun a mass poultry cull, officials told reporters at the site of the latest slaughter.

"The promise of the federal government of compensation to affected farmers has generated a good response," said Shehu Bawa, head of an emergency team set up by the Kano State government to contain the epidemic.

As he spoke, workers in protective face masks, boots and gloves burned and buried some 4,600 chickens at Zyil Farm, in the northern city of Kano.

Before the team had arrived, all but 1,375 chickens had already died in the region's latest suspected bird flu outbreak. The rest were slaughtered on the spot while two mass graves were dug, AFP saw.

"More and more poultry farmers are coming to us, asking us to come to their farms and supervise the destruction of all the chickens affected. The exercise began yesterday and we have destroyed chickens in four farms," Bawa said.

"More poultry farmers are waiting for us," he added.

Nigeria's federal health ministry has promised to pay 250 naira (less than two dollars/euros) for each bird slaughtered.

Since Wednesday's announcement of bird flu in Kaduna, officials have confirmed outbreaks in Kano and Plateau states and have said they are analysing suspect samples from birds which died in Katsina and Yobe.

And, while only four farms have been formally identified as infected, local health and agricultural officials say that dozens more have reported sudden deaths among their birds.

WHO experts are in the field educating rural families about the dangers of exposure to poultry, and on Sunday representatives of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) began to work with Nigerian authorities.

"Part of the group has arrived, we're expecting five persons in all," the FAO's head in Nigeria, Helder Muteia, told AFP from Abuja.

"We are going to have a meeting to include people of the Nigerian livestock department and other specialists who have arrived to coordinate. The government is doing a very good job and we are going to cooperate very well," he said.

The H5N1 strain of bird flu can pass from birds to humans, usually people such as farmers or poultry traders in direct contact with live animals.

However, if it mutates into a form transmissible between people it could cause a pandemic killing tens of millions, experts warn.

AFP

Mulltinationals Blamed

The Minister of State, Petroleum Resources, Dr.Edmund Dakouru, has blamed multinational firms operating in the Niger Delta for the frequent crisis in the region.

Dakouru faulted the companies for selective empowerment instead of the whole community and their ready disposition to “settle” interest groups.

Speaking at a two Special Niger Delta Consultative Forum, Friday, in Yenagoa, the Minister accused the oil firms staff of discriminating against the peaceful factions and moderate influences in the community for fear of upsetting the “bully”.

The crowded stakeholders was attended by the Governor of Bayelsa State, Dr.Goodluck Jonathan, his deputy, Peremobowei Ebebi,Deputy Governors of Edo, Delta, Rivers and Abia states,including top military brass, British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Richard Grozney, Senators, Speaker and deputy Speaker of Bayelsa Assembly, King Alfred Diete-Spiff, Non governmental organisations, youth groups, among others Security was beefed up at the Multipurpose Hall of the Sports Complex, venue of the event, just as two Nigerian Army amoured tanks soldiers and mobile policemen were positioned at the main gate of the complex.

The Minister also attributed default and delay on implementing valid Memorandum of Understanding(MOU) signed between these companies and their host communities.

Dakouru again faulted the multinational companies for employing insufficient numbers of the indigenes of host community, which does not make any impact on them.

He said the lopsided nature of contract awards is another major root of the community crisis in the Niger Delta region.

The Ministers believed that the developmental problems of the communities could be addressed by the Niger Delta Development Commission,(NDDC)where basic amenities like water, rural electricity,medi-care,roads,standard hospitals, among others could provided.

Earlier,the Senate President,Ken Nnamani regretted that the problems of the region had lingered for so long, occasioned by the obvious socio-political and economic detriment of the nation.

Represented by Senator Kojo Brambaifa, the senate president, however, said attempts had been made to address the currents of disaffection of the people, vis a vis the attempts to increase the derivation percentage to the oil bearing region.

While commending Jonathan, the senate president said the oil companies should layout a definite policy to transform the rural communities where they operate.

Source : Daily Independent (Nigeria)