Bird flu outbreak confirmed, but country unprepared

Burkina Faso has confirmed an outbreak of the killer H5N1 avian influenza virus, but international experts warn that the government is ill prepared to contain the crisis, posing a risk of further outbreak in the region. The Burkina Faso Minister of Animal Resources Toemoko Konate confirmed in a radio address late on Monday that three cases of the bird flu strain H5N1 have been identified on a poultry farm in the Saaba department of Kadiogo province, just 10 km from the capital Ouagadougou. Burkina Faso officially notified the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Organization for Animal Health (OIE) on Tuesday morning. For an epidemic to be contained control measures including disinfection, movement controls and widespread culling of poultry and wild birds should be enacted within 48 hours of the outbreak. Yet the stricken Kadiogo province alone covers roughly 3,000 square kilometres, and has 1 million inhabitants. And veterinary officials in neighbouring Ghana have also been put on alert following the discovery of the deadly virus in Burkina Faso. "The disease is a real threat. Before the threat was at our borders, now it is within the country. We must continue to be watchful both inside and at the borders," said Minister Konate. The government has ordered a three km isolation zone around the farm concerned and a cull of its poultry. Officially the poultry population of Burkina Faso numbers 32 million birds, 24 per cent of them from large-scale farms and 76 per cent reared traditionally. Konate also reported that although widespread poultry and wild bird deaths were recorded in February, specimens were only sent to WHO and FAO labs in Padua, Italy on 13 March 2006. “When it comes to avian influenza we know early detection and rapid response to the outbreak is crucial to getting rid of it, and when we say early response we mean hours that can make all the difference” said OIE spokesperson Maria Zampaglione. “To do that you need a chain that is working very well, that can detect the disease rapidly and act quickly afterwards.” The OIE has been alerting all African countries and the international community of the need to concentrate detection and prevention measures in [West Africa], and “Burkina is one of those countries that have particularly weak infrastructure,” according to Zampaglione. A meeting of experts from 46 African nations and UN officials in Gabon last month declared that throughout Africa weak national institutional capacities will “seriously hinder the implementation of preparedness and response plans.” The arrival of bird flu will impose a major burden on Burkina Faso's already vulnerable communities and overstretched government. The Burkina Faso government estimated in February that a national prevention plan would alone cost 2 billion CFA (US $3,700,000) , of which just 1 million CFA was available. It must now also face the reality of paying compensation to bird and farm owners like Ferdinand Ouedraogo, owner of the Kadiogo province farm. “In less than 48 hours I have lost most of my birds. It is impossible to evaluate my loss but I have got to restart work,” said Ouedraogo. “My farm was not even for money, but I didn’t have a choice about killing them all when the government said it was bird flu.” Government spokesman Romuald Somda told IRIN that the maximum payment per bird would be 1,500 CFA (US $2.80). A further complication to the government response will be a meningitis outbreak it is currently facing, which by 1 April had already killed over 750 people this year, almost twice the 432 deaths in the same period in 2005 according to the health ministry. A Yellow Fever epidemic in September 2005 also killed four people. Burkina Faso ranked as the world’s third poorest country in the UN 2005 Human Development Index. Half its 13 million people live on less than $1 a day. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the OIE have dispatched a joint mission to assess the impact of the disease and to advise the government on its initial response. The FAO has warned that containment and response may also be hindered by the remoteness of many farms in the country and by the number of small-scale holdings. Burkina Faso is the fourth West African country to be hit by avian flu after outbreaks in neighbouring Niger and in Nigeria and Cameroon. Bird flu has also infected five people in Egypt despite the culling of more than 10 million birds. According to the FAO bird flu has been responsible for at least 100 deaths worldwide, predominantly in Asia.