Bird flu virus spreads through north

The deadly H5N1 bird flu virus was confirmed in two more Nigerian states on Thursday as authorities grappled to contain the disease with quarantine orders and culling. Nigeria reported Africa’s first confirmed cases on Wednesday of the highly pathogenic strain of avian influenza, which has forced the slaughter of more than 100 million birds in Asia and jumped to humans in Asia, Europe and the Middle East. The bird flu outbreak was first reported at a poultry farm in northern Kaduna State, affecting tens of thousands of birds, but by Thursday authorities had reported new cases of fowls with H5N1 in neighbouring Kano State and Plateau State. “The federal government is doing everything to contain the disease within the three centres that have been located,” said a statement from Agriculture Ministry spokesman Tope Ajakaiye. The United States has pledged US $25 million to help Africa’s most populous nation combat the disease, and is dispatching an expert team expected in the next four days from the Centre for Disease Control in Atlanta, Ajakaiye added. “The team will come with 2,000 protective suits that will be used in the affected areas,” he said. Fowl have been dying in large numbers across northern Nigeria for the past four weeks and surveillance teams have been sent to scour northern Nigeria in search of suspect farms. Once identified, farms are placed under quarantine and birds marked for destruction if infected. The BBC reported on Thursday that farmers in northern Nigeria are rushing to sell dead chickens at cut-price rates before government bans are put into place. The “highly pathogenic H5N1” strain of the avian influenza virus was confirmed by the Paris-based World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) at a battery farm in Jaji village, Kaduna. All the 46,000 chickens, geese, and ostrich at the farm have been destroyed, according to OIE. OIE spokeswoman Maria Zampaglione told IRIN by phone on Thursday a team of global experts on bird flu was being assembled to travel to Nigeria but could not say when they would arrive. “Some experts are still on assignment in Turkey, and in eastern European countries,” she said. “It’s not easy, there are not that many avian flu experts around.” Agriculture Minister Adamu Bello said samples were taken on 16 January from the farm in the town of Jaji, Kaduna. The avian viral strain found, isolated by a reference laboratory in Padova, Italy jointly run by the OIE and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), is undergoing further investigation to determine its relationship with other known strains of the virus, the organisation said. To read how other countries in West Africa are preparing to deal with bird flu: [WEST AFRICA: Africa’s poorest nations fight to ward off deadly bird flu]