Bird flu resurfaces in north Nigeria’s main city
An outbreak of the deadly N5H1 strain of bird flu has resurfaced among poultry in northern Nigeria’s commercial capital Kano, veterinary officials have said.
Bird flu outbreaks have been confirmed in at least seven poultry farms in the city in the last two months, Shehu Bawa, the head of Kano State’s avian flu committee told a press workshop Monday, adding that 10,000 birds had been culled so far.
“We now have a resurgence of avian influenza in Kano,” Bawa said. “We have identified seven poultry farms that have been infected with the disease and laboratory tests on all the samples from these farms have confirmed positive.”
“A total of 10,000 chickens on all the affected farms have been depopulated and we are currently conducting investigations on an eigth farm whose chickens have shown some signs of an ailment suspected to be avian flu”, he told the briefing organised by the US Centers for Disease Control.
Two other northern states, Katsina and Sokoto, recorded outbreaks of a disease suspected be avian influenza early this month but laboratory tests were still being conducted at the national Veterinary Research Institute in central city of Jos for confirmation.
Kano was worst affected by the bird flu outbreak since the disease was first detected on a farm in Jaji outside the neighbouring city of Kaduna in February 2006.
The flu outbreak ravaged 97 farms in Kano resulting in the death or culling of over 300,000 birds.
“From all indications, avian influenza has come to stay in Nigeria unless something urgent and drastic is done about it”, Bawa warned.
Bawa blamed migratory birds from Europe for the outbreak of the disease in Nigeria, adding that as long as the movement of these birds was not checked there would be a recurrence every year, although improved bio-security measures by farmers helped in minimising its spread.
“These birds migrate from Europe to Africa in this time of winter and take shelter in our wetlands. We need to focus our attention to these wetlands where these migratory birds camp every year, bringing this destructive virus along,” Bawa said.
According to Nigeria’s Department of Veterinary Research, since the bird flu outbreak began in February last year, a total of 945,862 birds have been lost, 602,160 of which were culled.
The poultry farmers affected were paid 250 naira (1.95 US dollars / 1.50 euros) compensation for each fowl destroyed.
Avian influenza story source: AP