Bird flu infection rates down 40 percent since start of 2008 - government

Egypt's Supreme Committee to Combat Bird Flu - a government body - said on 2 February that infection rates among poultry in farms and in backyards had dropped by an average of 40 percent since the beginning of 2008, due to media campaigns and vaccination drives.

[Read this report in Arabic]

Ayman Kaffas, a spokesman for the Committee, said no new suspected human bird flu cases were confirmed in January, reflecting the positive steps taken by the national committee in cooperation with the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Agriculture, the World Health Organization (WHO), local councils, as well as veterinary officials and the media.

However, Patrick Crump, Save the Children country director for Egypt, said this success indicator was not significant when looking at the big picture: “The current trend in bird flu infection rates [in Egypt] may be downwards, but only temporary. With endemic diseases like bird flu, there are up and down fluctuations from week to week.”

Several non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Egypt have stepped up their public awareness initiatives, especially in rural areas, to complement government measures at the community level and make contingency plans in the event of pandemic outbreaks.

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The Egyptian office of Save the Children, for example, has recently started an “avian flu free villages” campaign which is part of a communication strategy for healthy living initiated by the USA’s Johns Hopkins University in collaboration with the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

The campaign, which also involves other civil society organisations and local governors, focuses on how people can identify bird flu risk factors and detect infection symptoms.

Women, children at greatest risk

Saham Yassin, the Save the Children head of health in Qena Governorate, told IRIN that efforts are under way to train specific target groups of rural women who raise and slaughter poultry domestically, as well as school children in the villages of the most affected governorates (Qena, Minya, and Fayyoum).

Since the first detection of the H5N1 virus in humans in Egypt in February 2006, a disproportionate number of patients have been women and children. They are the ones who mostly come into contact with “backyard birds” raised at home and on rooftops.

People are still hiding their chickens under the bed. They fear their family’s livelihood would be destroyed.

However, Crump said the “village-to-village strategy is still not the best response, especially in Egypt which has approximately 5,000 villages”.

He said the communication strategy needed to adopt better surveillance mechanisms and form special teams for rapid response in rural areas, instead of spending large amounts of money on national media campaigns.

“Such teams could be deployed to an outbreak site as soon as a new case is detected and immediately start awareness mobilisation about the bird flu virus in the affected zone,” Crump said.

Need to change popular behaviour

But the successful implementation of new communication strategies and achieving a long-term decrease in infection rates depends on changing popular behaviour, such as slaughtering practices or improving hygiene standards.

Ibrahim Kerdany, WHO spokesman for the eastern Mediterranean region, said “changing the behaviour of people and persuading them to participate in the campaigns are not easy tasks, especially in a region where chickens are so important for livelihoods and the domestic economy.”

Photo: Doaa Shaarawy/Save the Children

The “avian flu free villages” campaign trains women to improve personal hygiene and to use protective gloves when in direct contact with live poultry

According to Crump, there is widespread fear among the rural population that all chickens would have to be culled if there was a single suspected bird flu case. “People are still hiding their chickens under the bed. They fear their family’s livelihood would be destroyed, so many still don’t report the appearance of suspected cases to the authorities.”

So far, the most important preventive measures to combat the spread of the avian flu virus have included banning the raising of birds in towns and the transportation of poultry without authorisation between provinces, and massive inoculation campaigns.

Vaccination drive

According to the Supreme Committee to Combat Bird Flu, 100 million birds were vaccinated against the virus in January, compared to 76 million in December 2007, and 36 training courses were organised by the government involving over 883 physicians and veterinarians to improve local capacity in preventing future outbreaks.

WHO said on 1 February 2008 that since the outbreak of the virus in Egypt in February 2006, 43 human bird flu cases had been confirmed, of which 19 had died.

According to Crump, there is still a need for better cooperation and information flows between the Egyptian government, international bodies and the NGO community in tackling the virus.

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