New bird flu case confirms spread of H5N1

The government of Cameroon, the fourth African country affected by the deadly H5N1 virus, has confirmed the presence of a second case of bird flu.

In a statement on Wednesday, Minister for Livestock, Fisheries and Animal Industries Aboukary Sarki said a specialist Italian laboratory detected the H5N1 virus on a wild duck found dead on Lake Malape, situated 40 kilometres west of Garoua near the border with Nigeria.

The minister urged people in the area "not to manipulate bodies of dead wild birds ... not to consume flesh of any wild bird and to alert veterinary officials of dead birds found in their vicinities".

The case in the West African nation’s North province comes two weeks after the announcement of a first case detected still farther north in Maroua.

After the outbreak of bird flu in Nigeria in February, the first African country hit by the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain, Cameroon banned poultry imports both from across the Nigerian border and from other countries where the disease has been detected.

It also intensified controls along its 1,600-kilometre frontier with Nigeria though consumer groups said poultry products were still filtering across the porous border.

Over 1,000 chicks were found dead around Maroua in the same week as bird flu was first detected in Cameroon, and at least 400 birds have died since in and around the capital Yaounde, said the Inspector General at the Livestock, Fisheries and Animal Industries Ministry, Oumaoru Dawa.

The virus has not been confirmed in the southern region, though some 240 chickens were recently reported dead in the southwest provincial town of Limbe on the Atlantic coast. Samples of some of the dead birds are still being tested.

Meanwhile consumption of chicken and eggs has fallen drastically, with prices slashed by 50 to 75 percent.