Mounting bird deaths spark fears of widespread bird flu

Some 240 dead birds at a poultry farm in southwest Cameroon have sparked fears on Monday that the deadly H5N1 virus, confirmed in the northwest of the country last week, is rampant. The dead birds were discovered in the commercial seaside town of Limbe, close to the Nigerian border but several hundred kilometres from the Cameroon’s first case of confirmed bird flu in a dead duck in Maroua in the far north of the country. "Some 240 birds were discovered dead in a poultry farm in the Isokolo neighbourhood in Limbe town," state television and radio reported on Monday, adding that samples from the dead birds had been sent for H5N1 testing. Cameroon was the fourth African country to confirm the presence of the H5N1 virus, which can infect and kill humans. The government told Cameroonians "not to panic" on Monday, saying "another disease could cause the massive death of birds not only the bird flu". The Minister of Livestock, Fisheries and Animal Husbandry, Aboubakary Sarki, is visiting Cameroon’s Far North, North and Adamawa provinces to review measures to halt the spread of the disease southwards. Sarki told reporters that 13 control points had been erected throughout the region to prevent the transportation of birds from the north to the south. Cameroon banned import of chickens and associated products from neighbouring Nigeria and tightened border controls when that government confirmed Africa's first case of bird flu in February. Following an appeal from the Cameroonian government, Cameroon’s Public Health Ministry announced last week from Geneva that the World Health Organisation had promised 300 doses of Tamiflu drug used to treat H5N1 in humans.