Children tested for human bird flu

Health officials in Nigeria have begun clinical investigation of a family in the northern state of Kaduna whose two children may have been infected with the H5N1 avian influenza virus, officials said on Sunday. Abdulsalami Nasidi, head of a national health task force charged with coordinating efforts to halt the spread of the virus, said blood samples have been taken from the children and all other members of their family. Should the tests be positive, they would be Africa’s first confirmed human cases. The family lived close to a large commercial farm in Jaji, some 30 kilometres north of Kaduna, where tens of thousands of poultry deaths were confirmed last Wednesday to be due to bird flu. “We are testing the samples both here in Nigeria and abroad,” Nasidi told IRIN without giving further details. The deadly H5N1 virus has also been confirmed in chicken farms in two neighbouring states of Kano and Plateau. Nigeria’s agriculture ministry has dispatched veterinary teams to the affected farms to place them under quarantine and exterminate remaining birds in a bid to curb the spread of the virus. Many farmers have begun killing birds without the protective clothing necessary to prevent any transmission of the virus from birds to humans. Experts from the US-based Center for Disease Control and Prevention arrived in Nigeria over the weekend, bringing with them protective clothing for 200 Nigerian health officials, Agriculture Minister Adamu Bello said. Officials from the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) are also heading to Nigeria to help the government draw up a control plan and the World Bank has approved a US $50 million grant to tackle bird flu. The FAO on Friday advised the Nigerian government to “immediately close down poultry markets throughout Kaduna and Kano states,” but IRIN correspondents at the scene said that chickens were still being bought and sold over the weekend. In Kaduna state the local authorities have launched a publicity campaign calling on people to report bird deaths in large numbers. “Our emphasis now is to identify farms with poultry deaths, to cull surviving birds, and then check people who have been in contact with the birds for the virus,” Abdulhamid Abubakar, head of Kaduna’s task force on preventing avian influenza, told reporters. All workers at Sambawa Farm in Jaji, the farm owned by Nigeria’s Sports Minister Samaila Sambawa where the virus was first detected, will undergo clinical screening to check them for bird flu infections, Abubakar said. And birds found within a three-kilometre radius of the farm will be exterminated in order to halt further spread of the virus, the official said. But in nearby villages, residents complained that no government officials had visited them to advise them on what to do about the mass deaths of poultry.

A resident of Birnin Yaro Gari village holding up his sick chicken

“Our chickens have been dying for several weeks now and it is only recently that we heard the problem is from Sambawa Farms,” said Ibrahim Hassan, a resident of Birnin Yaro Gari village next to the farm. Most of the villagers, who live in thatch-roofed mud huts, let their chickens roam the village for food, picking their way among goats, sheep and children playing in the dust during the daytime, before being placed in coops at night. Villagers say thousands of birds have died in the past month but that they have kept no precise count. Experts have warned that unless the virus is identified quickly and contained, it could spread rapidly. Countries across West Africa have moved to ban imports of live fowl and poultry products from Nigeria and tighten border controls. To see Africa's response to bird flu click HERE