Bird flu outbreak is under control, government

Cote d’Ivoire’s government has said that rapid reaction programmes to contain an outbreak of the killer bird flu virus are going well after a mass cull at the weekend which has left poultry markets in the main city Abidjan disinfected and deserted. Cote d’Ivoire, once a model of West African development, is divided by a three and a half year civil war but continues to have some of the region’s best vets and laboratories. And with the presence of the killer H5N1 bird flu virus confirmed, vets dressed in plastic protective clothing set out with incineration sacks to collect possibly infected birds. Bird flu has already been confirmed in four other West African countries this year, starting with Nigeria in early February, then jumping to neighbouring Niger and Cameroon by March, and then to Burkina Faso last month. And in all those countries international agencies have raised concerns over non-use of protective clothing or improper culling methods. The gruesome process of catching and burning thousands of birds started at the weekend in Abidjan’s densely populated neighbourhoods Treichville and Marcory, where the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu was first suspected two weeks ago. "During my twenty years in the poultry business I had never heard of this strange disease before," said poultry salesman Suleyman Tera, nervously smoking a cigarette among rows of empty cages at the indoor Treichville market. "I can hardly pronounce the name, avian-something, it's too complicated, but I will do what they say because I am scared." Taya said he has been given a slip of paper in exchange for his 43 chickens, and expected to be reimbursed once the government had decided how much compensation to give. News of the disease that can be fatal in humans has made its way to Abidjan’s hip nightclubs, too, where revellers shake to the “dead chicken dance”. “The campaign is going very well,” said health ministry official Germain Kouadio. "We are still discussing compensation with the poultry sector, but the vendors have been extremely cooperative." Fears about the disease, which the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates has already killed more than 100 people worldwide, are running high among poultry traders hanging around Abidjan’s normally bustling markets. A frozen chicken importer Moussa Tanoh said he even stopped eating his own product “months ago” since West Africa’s first case of the virus was detected in northern Nigeria in early February. “Cote d’Ivoire is a huge importer of frozen chicken”, Tanoh said. But now, “many people don’t really trust imported poultry, and with this virus nobody is eating chicken anymore.” Another importer of frozen poultry products confirmed that sales had dropped to an all-time low, since the outbreak was confirmed . "We used to sell between 200 and 300 boxes of chicken per day," a spokesman of the Abidjan-based company UCAF said. "Now, we're lucky if we sell 10 boxes a day. It's really serious." Plummeting chicken sales have brought grumbles in poorer West African countries like Burkina Faso and Niger, where large numbers of people rely on selling birds for their survival, and many more use poultry and eggs to prop up meagre subsistence diets. Bird flu is transmitted through coming into contact with dead birds but cannot be caught from eating chicken and eggs cooked at a high heat, according to WHO experts. Despite the high profile slaughter and worries about the disease in Abidjan, some people defiantly said it was too early to panic. "I haven't seen anyone dying from bird flu yet," said Eugenie Gnale, who has a one-woman telephone shop. "If that happens, I'll be scared. In the meantime, I'll continue to eat chicken -- cautiously."