- (Reuters) -- Burkina Faso is preparing
to cull more poultry, after the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain of bird flu
1st detected near the capital last month spread to 2 more towns, the government
said late on Friday [19 May 2006].
-
- The disease had been confirmed in Bobo-Dioulasso,
the 2nd city, some 360 km (220 miles) west of the capital Ouagadougou,
and in Sabou, around 100 km west of the capital, the government said. A
new outbreak had also been found in Ouagadougou itself.
-
- The impoverished West African nation
1st confirmed in early April 2006 that it had found the virus in poultry
at a motel on the outskirts of Ouagadougou.
-
- It has since isolated the area and culled
birds within a 3 km (2 mile) radius. "The original site has been disinfected.
But the measures will be stepped up, and the same ones will be taken at
the new sites," Animal resources minister Tiemoko Konate told reporters.
He said the new cases -- found in traditional artisanal rather than modern
farms -- had been confirmed on Friday [19 May 2006] after tests carried
out by the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) at its laboratory
in Weybridge, England.
-
- Neighboring Ivory Coast became the 6th
African country to be hit by H5N1 this month [May 2006]. The virus has
killed more than 100 people around the world since 2003.
-
- World Health Organization officials fear
human cases have gone undetected in West Africa due to poor health services.
So far, the region has no confirmed human infections, though in another
part of the continent, 5 [should read 6] Egyptians have died from the virus.
-
- Konate said tests had been carried out
on the staff working at the motel in Burkina Faso where the virus was 1st
found but said that no human cases had been discovered.
-
- Patricia A. Doyle DVM, PhD
- Bus Admin, Tropical Agricultural Economics
- Univ of West Indies
-
- Please visit my "Emerging Diseases"
message board at:
- http://www.emergingdisease.org/phpbb/index.php
- Also my new website:
- http://drpdoyle.tripod.com/
- Zhan le Devlesa tai sastimasa
- Go with God and in Good Health
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