Africa haven for bird flu growth

FAO warns bird flu threat exists in Africa

July 13, 2006, 7 hours, 14 minutes and 44 seconds ago.

By ANDnetwork .com

Bird flu is still spreading in Africa and will continue to threaten the continent in the years to come, the UN food agency, FAO, has warned and called for rapid and decisive action to quell the disease.

"In the majority of cases, wherever the highly pathogenous influenza flu appeared, the global community and the countries concerned succeeded in circumventing it. "But there is always cause for concern in Indonesia and it is spreading in Africa where it is likely to become endemic in several countries," FAO warned in a statement issued this week. Culling, compensation of farmers and the control of animal movements form difficulties for the implementation of appropriate measures to fight it in Africa. To all these problems should be added the illegal trade of poultry. "The risk will persist as long as this trade is not rigorously controlled by more dynamic veterinary services and, in any case, not before the improvement of surveillance, response to alerts, diagnosis and the transmission of field reports," FAO explained. Since the outbreak of the epidemic over two years ago, 229 people have been infected by the H5N1 virus causing 131 deaths and some 200 million poultry were culled causing losses of $10 billion in Southeast Asia alone. Angola Press MB/JB