Nigeria: Bird Flu Found in Lagos

[Susie]

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L06692401.htm


Nigerian H5N1 bird flu outbreak spreads to Lagos

ABUJA, April 6 (Reuters) - The deadly H5N1 bird flu virus has been found in backyard poultry and at a commercial farm in Lagos, Africa's largest city which is home to about 13 million people, health officials said on Thursday.

The latest discovery of the virus hundreds of miles from Nigeria's first infection indicates the disease is defeating measures to contain it and raises the prospect of much wider human contact with infected birds.

"We are taking samples from humans who had contact with infected poultry in Lagos state and sending them to the virology lab," said Jide Coker of the Health Ministry, who is coordinating the response in Lagos and neighbouring Ogun state.

H5N1 has been confirmed at Agege Farm, a commercial poultry farm in the Ikeja area of mainland Lagos, and in backyard poultry in Victoria Island, an exclusive business district on the Atlantic coast, he said.

A government-run bird flu crisis centre in the capital Abuja said it did not have information about the Lagos outbreak.

The deadly strain has now been confirmed in poultry in 13 of Nigeria's 36 states and in the Federal Capital Territory, but no human case has been detected in Africa's most populous country.

Millions of Nigerians keep chickens in their backyards and most poultry is transported and sold live because the majority of people do not have access to refrigerators. This has raised fears of widespread contact between infected birds and humans.

Analysts say a weak health-care system and Nigeria's high mortality rate could mean that human cases go unreported.

Nigeria was the first country in Africa to report an outbreak of H5N1, which has killed at least 108 people in Asia and the Middle East since 2003.

For now, the strain can pass from birds to humans but not between humans. Scientists fear it could mutate to a form that can pass easily between humans. This could cause a global flu pandemic and kill millions of people.

The H5N1 strain was first confirmed in Nigeria on Feb. 8 in the northern state of Kaduna. It spread rapidly across the country despite efforts to contain it. Burkina Faso became the fifth African country to confirm the presence of H5N1 this week.

Nigeria has ordered measures such as culling, quarantine and a transport ban on live poultry in affected areas to contain the disease, but poor coordination and infrastructure has slowed the implementation.

The U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention has helped Nigerian laboratories increase their capacity to detect bird flu in both poultry and humans, and some samples have also been sent to labs in Europe.

The World Bank last month approved a $50 million credit for Nigeria to help prevent the spread of bird flu.

[dottore_pesta]

Nigerian H5N1 bird flu outbreak spreads to Lagos
06 Apr 2006 12:26:39 GMT, Source: Reuters,


By Estelle Shirbon

(Reuters) - The deadly H5N1 bird flu virus has been found in backyard poultry and at a commercial farm in Lagos, Africa's largest city which is home to about 13 million people, health officials said on Thursday.

The latest discovery of the virus hundreds of miles from Nigeria's first infection indicates the disease is defeating measures to contain it and raises the prospect of much wider human contact with infected birds.

"We are taking samples from humans who had contact with infected poultry in Lagos state and sending them to the virology lab," said Jide Coker of the Health Ministry, who is coordinating the response in Lagos and neighbouring Ogun state.
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This is important. Lagos is huge, much larger than the 13M quoted here. There are estimates that it could be as large as 70M.

[HenryN]

Commentary at

http://www.recombinomics.com/News/04...Confirmed.html

[dottore_pesta]

When bird flu was first found in Africa, some epidemiologists found the event of great concern because the incubation of the virus in a population suffering from numerous diseases such as AIDS made the potential for mutation of the virus into a more transmissible disease from human to human much greater.

The almost complete lack of information about the spread of the disease in the continent, along with inadequate testing for bird-flu associated deaths, is extremely troubling.