Posted on 02/09/2006 3:11:02 AM PST by Mother Abigail
News from Africa 09/02/2006 10:19 KADUNA, Nigeria,
Feb 9 (AFP)
Bird disease in flu-hit Nigeria "spreading like wildfire"
As Nigeria scrambled to deal with Africa's first confirmed case of deadly bird flu, a farmer's representative said Thursday thousands of poultry had died of disease further north.
Identified earlier this week as "fowl cholera", the disease was spreading rapidly through farms in Kano State, killing tens of thousands of chickens, Auwalu Haruna, secretary of the Kano State poultry farmers' association, said.
Nigeria announced Wednesday that Africa's first confirmed case of the H5N1 strain of bird flu -- which can be fatal to humans -- had been found in Sambawa Farm in Kaduna State, 300 kilometres (185 miles) north of Abuja.
The disease in Kano "is spreading like wildfire," Haruna told AFP.
"We have 20,000 new infections reported today, bringing the figure for infected birds to 80,000. What worsens the situation is the movement of infected poultry, in a frantic effort to minimise losses," he said.
Haruna and several market stall holders told AFP that once chickens are infected farmers are killing them and rapidly dumping them on the market in an effort to beat any future quarantine and make a quick profit.
"The announcement by the federal government of bird flu at Sambawa Farm shocked us, but we are just waiting for confirmation from the veterinary institute in Vom for our birds," Haruna said. Prices of chickens in Kano have dropped by two thirds since thousands of birds began dying of the mystery infection.
International experts from the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation were expected to arrive in Nigeria on Thursday following the news of the bird flu outbreak.
Nigeria's Agriculture Minister Adamu Bello promised Wednesday that a massive effort to quarantine farms and cull sick birds would be rapidly put into place to contain the outbreak, but there was no sign of that on the ground.
"spreading like wildfire"
So are Nigerian money scams. I get one a day in my Yahoo Email.
http://www.hamiltonspectator.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=hamilton/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1139439014187&call_pageid=1020420665036&col=1112101662670
Bird flu bombshell: Virus found in Africa
H5N1 strain of bird flu found in poultry farm
By Helen Branswell
The Canadian Press
(Feb 9, 2006)
It appears the worrisome H5N1 avian flu virus has found its way to Africa -- an event world experts have long dreaded.
A strain of H5N1 has been found in Africa's most densely populated country, Nigeria, it was reported yesterday.
"We'd certainly hoped not to see it in Africa," said Michael Perdue, an avian influenza expert with the World Health
Organization's global flu program.
Doctors say that if bird flu infects humans in Africa, it will decimate populations already weakened by HIV, malaria and malnutrition.
Initial testing suggests the strain believed to have crossed to Africa is closely matched to the virus that has been plaguing parts of Asia and the Middle East.
It has been found in flocks in a large mixed poultry farm in northern Nigeria, the Paris-based World Organization for Animal Health, known as the OIE, said yesterday.
Nigeria is home to nearly 140-million people and is the continent's largest commercial poultry sector.
A team of veterinarians and epidemiologists from the OIE and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization were to travel to Nigeria today to help assess and contain the outbreak.
While no suspect human cases have yet been reported, the WHO was looking into sending stores of the antiviral drug Tamiflu, spokesperson Maria Cheng said from Geneva.
Tests will reveal if the Nigeria virus is actually the same strain that has been ravaging poultry flocks and killing small but growing numbers of people across Asia and into the Middle East.
"If we look at how it has worked in eastern Europe and Southeast Asia, they have certain geographic and political firewalls. And I don't think we have them in Africa," Dr. Alex Thiermann, president of the OIE's international animal health code, said from Paris.
And of all the places in Africa for the virus to pop up, this West African nation will pose unique challenges, experts said.
Dr. Joseph Domenech of the FAO answered "Nigeria" when asked where in Africa he had least wanted to see H5N1 emerge.
"In Nigeria you have a lot of commercial farms," Domenech, head of the FAO's animal health service, said from Rome.
"(And) Nigeria as a whole is a heavily populated country in Africa."
Nigeria does, however, have an
army of polio eradication campaign staff located across the country.
And the WHO is looking into whether that network can be activated to conduct surveillance for and help educate Nigerians about avian influenza.
The agencies could use the help.
With ongoing outbreaks in birds in Indonesia, Turkey, Iraq, China and a number of other countries, adding Nigeria to the mix is straining their scarce resources.
"We have very few reference labs and we have very few people that we can be sending around," Thiermann explained.
"They're getting off the plane and getting on (another) plane."
The OIE reported the virus had been found in a commercial, battery-cage operation in Jaji, a village in Nigeria's northern Kaduna state.
Nearly 46,000 birds either succumbed to the virus or were slaughtered to contain the spread.
They're doomed.
Shades of The Andromeda Strain.
<< .... if bird flu infects humans in Africa, it will decimate populations .... >>
Rubbish.
It will devastate them.
[Doesn't a single writer exist who knows the meaning of "decimate?" (To kill one in ten - to reduce by 10%)]
Recall that the Flu Epidemic during WW I killed mostly young, healthy young men; due to (if I recall correctly) a "cytokine storm" -- the overreaction of their immune systems caused side effects which proved deadly.
And this H5N1 is similar...
So what happens when H5N1 attacks someone with AIDS?
Will the lessened immune response be advantageous, or not?
Prayers for all !
10% is probably an overestimate, after all Bird Flu does not transmit from human-to-human so only those who mishandle the fowl are at risk of infection.
Bad news. There is a steady pipeline of travelers from Nigeria to the US. Wonder if flu screening stations have yet been established at our major airports?
Human-to-human transmission has occurred since probably 2004.
Thankfully, that is true (at present)...
Probably wouldn't kill them as fast. The cytokine storm is a result of an overly robust immune response. If the immune system is already impaired, it might not have that effect.
Doesn't mean they will survive, but it might mean they will live longer.
Let's hope they can keep this localized in Africa.
A Reuters story in the last hour states H5N1 has been found in wild birds in Azerbaijan. A map of Asia is getting pretty crowded with flu pointers, and now Africa is accumulating them, and Europe is on the verge.
Azerbaijan map if anyone needs a refresher (Flash).
http://www.alertnet.org/map/index.htm?ct=2&code=AZ
Hey!-- If they refuse to give up on their promiscuity to prevent AIDS, what makes you think they will wash their hands after handling sick birds? I read an article about how Nigerian men are very narcissistic and domineering: They want what they want, when they want it, and they are not going to bother with stupid health precautions.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink.
Here's a link to a chat board with Jamaican women discussing Nigerian men.
Normally I would scoff at doomsayers, but this thing is starting to get me a bit worried.
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