Bird flu strikes urban residential area

Cote d’Ivoire has reported its first outbreak of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu in a poor residential district of the main city Abidjan, the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) said on Thursday.

Authorities are awaiting confirmation of the results from the main OIE laboratory in Italy, however an OIE spokesman in Paris told IRIN “We can consider that it’s bird flu”.

Tests carried out by the national laboratory for agricultural development (Lanada) in Abidjan found H5N1 in seventeen birds, including chickens, ducks and a sparrow hawk.

The cases came from two separate backyards in the populous and poor residential neighbourhoods of Marcory and Treichville in Abidjan, the OIE said.

“We are still waiting for the results, it has not been officially confirmed,” said Ivorian Minister of Animal Production and Fish Resources, Alphonse Douaty, late Wednesday night in a statement. Douaty said three telephone lines had been opened for questions and reports from the population.

Final confirmation from the OIE would make Cote d’Ivoire the sixth African nation to be struck with the virus which can prove fatal in humans. The World Health Organisation (WHO) told IRIN it is meeting about how to tackle the Cote d’Ivoire outbreak.

Animal health officials said teams were being put in place to stop the virus from spreading. “If there are other poultry [in the area] we will destroy them,” Cisse Bakary of the Lanada laboratory told IRIN. “We are going to have to cull all poultry in the area and we will have to ban all movement of poultry between the communities.”

Nigeria was the first African country to confirm cases of bird flu in early February. Since then Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Egypt and Niger have all confirmed H5N1 in poultry and Egypt has confirmed human cases of the disease.

Sudan has reported an outbreak of bird flu though tests have yet to confirm that it is the deadly H5N1 strain.

Small scale poultry farming is widespread in West Africa where people often live in close contact with their birds, increasing concerns among experts of more human cases of bird flu in Africa.

Experts are concerned that H5N1 could mutate into a strain that could pass from human to human and lead to a worldwide pandemic.