More cases of deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu detected

The deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu has been detected in a third province of Afghanistan, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) confirmed on Thursday. “Logar province is the third province in the country where the deadly H5N1 virus has been detected since last month,” FAO public information officer, Assadullah Azhari, said in the Afghan capital, Kabul. Avian influenza was first confirmed in March from six samples of birds in the capital and the eastern province of Nangarhar. No human cases have been reported in the impoverished Central Asian state thus far. One week earlier, the FAO received 103 samples, which were sent to its laboratory in Padova, Italy for testing. Another sample collected from the central province of Parwan had also tested positive, but had yet to be confirmed for H5N1, Azhari added. According to the FAO, test results from samples collected from eastern Paktya and Kunar provinces were not confirmed as positive from the FAO reference laboratory, where testing was ongoing. The FAO has called for increasing surveillance capacities in the country and well-equipped emergency response teams to conduct investigations and collect samples on the ground.

About 85 percent of the country's estimated 31 million inhabitants live in close proximity to poultry

Earlier, the government of President Hamid Karzai ordered an immediate slaughter of all chickens in affected areas to avoid the deadly disease from spreading. Meanwhile, test on birds in a remote Afghan mountain village in the central province of Ghor, where three children from the same family recently died, found no evidence of the virus. The FAO had earlier warned that bird flu could be particularly hard for destitute Afghanistan to deal with as its public veterinary services remain weak, despite the fact that about 85 percent of the population lives in close contact with poultry, with most rural families having several chickens in the backyard. Since 2003, the H5N1 strain of the deadly bird flu virus has been detected in Europe, Africa and resurfaced in Asia. The World Health Organization (WHO) has confirmed that 176 people have been infected to date, of whom 98 have died.