KABUL, March 15: Afghan authorities said on Wednesday tests had shown it was 99 per cent certain that the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain of bird flu is present in Afghanistan.
Tests on poultry samples sent to a laboratory in Rome confirmed the presence of the H5 type of bird flu and showed it was probably the deadly H5N1 strain, an agriculture ministry official said.
“They say it is 99 per cent H5N1 but there are still some tests to be completed,” veterinary services director Aziz Usmani said.
The final test results were expected on Thursday but it seemed certain that H5N1 had arrived in Afghanistan, a health ministry official said.
“There is a good possibility that the results are 100 per cent positive for H5N1,” he said.
The samples were taken from birds in the capital and the eastern city of Jalalabad near Pakistan, where the H5 virus was detected last month.
“It’s a disaster,” said Asadullah Azhari, a spokesman in Kabul for the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation which has warned that bird flu was “virtually unavoidable” here.
“It is really dangerous, FAO is very concerned. There should be a quick response in the areas where the virus was found. Chicken and poultry must be killed and farmers must be compensated,” Mr Azhari said.
The FAO has said emergency action against the virus will cost Afghanistan $1.5 million, most of which would have to come from international donors. Officials said this week only $500,000 had been received.
SLAUGHTER IN INDIA: Indian authorities on Wednesday launched a new mass slaughter of chickens after fresh cases of bird flu were detected in poultry in a western state.
The latest cases announced on Tuesday were in Jalgaon district in Maharashtra state, 140 kilometres from the initial outbreak on Feb 18 in Navapur town in the same state, senior animal husbandry official Bijay Kumar said.
He confirmed the strain detected in the chickens was H5N1, the lone one within the H5 subtype known to cause infections in humans that have claimed about 100 lives in seven countries since 2003.
The new cases came just as Indians were regaining their nerve to eat chicken following government advertisements assuring consumers that properly cooked poultry products were safe to eat.
“We started the culling operations of 70,000 birds ... from Wednesday,” District Collector Vijay Singhal told the Press Trust of India.
Animal husbandry official Kumar estimated the slaughter would take three days and said health workers were doing door-to-door checks.—AFP
