Africans urged to draw up plan against bird flu

BLANTYRE – Africa needs the capacity and donor aid to react swiftly to deal with a potentially large-scale outbreak of bird flu, a conference of experts from 19 African countries heard yesterday.

Namibia is one of the countries represented at the conference. “Africa needs a rapid response to the disease and must draw up practical measures to control and prevent the disease,” Malawi’s Agriculture Minister Uladi Mussa said on the opening day of the conference in the capital Lilongwe.Five African countries are grappling with outbreaks of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu that have left four people dead in Egypt, the state worst hit on the continent.Nigeria in February reported the first case of H5N1 bird flu in Africa followed by Egypt, Niger and Cameroon.This month, Sudan confirmed the presence of the virulent strain of the virus in poultry in Khartoum.The H5N1 virus has struck poultry flocks in dozens of countries and claimed more than 100 human lives, but only Egypt so far on the continent has reported human fatalities.”Africa has to mitigate the impact of the disease.The disease is expensive to control and will severely affect the growth rates of our economies,” Mussa said in a prepared speech.”It is common knowledge that the veterinary services in Africa do not have adequate capacity to deal with the disease,” Mussa told delegates to the five-day meeting, calling on donor countries to give more money and technical assistance.Millions of Africans depended heavily on poultry both for income and food, said UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) country representative Mazlan Jusoh.He too warned that “generally Africa is not prepared against the disease.”One of the plans to be discussed at the meeting was the creation of a common laboratory where all samples of suspected bird flu would be sent to be tested.Most southern African countries currently send their samples to a South African laboratory near Pretoria, one of the few bird-flu testing facilities on the continent.Apart from Namibia, experts attending the conference are from Botswana, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.- Nampa-AFP”Africa needs a rapid response to the disease and must draw up practical measures to control and prevent the disease,” Malawi’s Agriculture Minister Uladi Mussa said on the opening day of the conference in the capital Lilongwe.Five African countries are grappling with outbreaks of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu that have left four people dead in Egypt, the state worst hit on the continent.Nigeria in February reported the first case of H5N1 bird flu in Africa followed by Egypt, Niger and Cameroon.This month, Sudan confirmed the presence of the virulent strain of the virus in poultry in Khartoum.The H5N1 virus has struck poultry flocks in dozens of countries and claimed more than 100 human lives, but only Egypt so far on the continent has reported human fatalities.”Africa has to mitigate the impact of the disease.The disease is expensive to control and will severely affect the growth rates of our economies,” Mussa said in a prepared speech.”It is common knowledge that the veterinary services in Africa do not have adequate capacity to deal with the disease,” Mussa told delegates to the five-day meeting, calling on donor countries to give more money and technical assistance.Millions of Africans depended heavily on poultry both for income and food, said UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) country representative Mazlan Jusoh.He too warned that “generally Africa is not prepared against the disease.”One of the plans to be discussed at the meeting was the creation of a common laboratory where all samples of suspected bird flu would be sent to be tested.Most southern African countries currently send their samples to a South African laboratory near Pretoria, one of the few bird-flu testing facilities on the continent.Apart from Namibia, experts attending the conference are from Botswana, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.- Nampa-AFP