• As state govt fumigates farm to curb dispersal
From Olanrewaju Lawal, Birnin Kebbi
Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza, popularly known as H5N1 virus, has been detected in a poultry farm located in Amanawa village, Kalgo Local Government Area of Kebbi State which has killed 14 peacocks.
The virus, which was reported to the state Ministry of Animal Husbandry and Fishery, Veterinary Services Unit by the farm owner, was initially treated like ordinary disease until samples sent to laboratory in Jos, Plateau State, after the death of the birds were returned positive.
While speaking with newsmen after the fumigation by the team from Kebbi State government, Ibrahim Senchi, director, Veterinary Service, Kebbi State Ministry of Animals Husbandry and Fishery, said the essence of fumigation of the farm was to contain the widespread of the virus to other farms and human being.
According to him, “the essence of this exercise is to contain as quickly as possible the recent incident of Avian Influenza that we detected in Kebbi State.
Some Peacocks were reported to be sick and the pattern of mortality of these birds was worrisome to us.
“So we immediately sent a team of veterinary doctors to the scene for preliminary investigations and upon that investigation, we found it necessary to send samples to a reference laboratory in Jos, Plateau State, where the samples were analysed. Unfortunately, the samples were returned positives as H5N1 and so, that prompted us to undertake this exercise.
“That led us to the residence of the peacocks where they were staying. But our main task is to ensure the virus did not go beyond this point. However, we are still going to do more surveillances which is a pattern of seeking for other possibility of more occurrences of the virus in our state.
“This incident is only in this facility, this environment, but we may not known that something is happening. And that is why we are here as a team of professionals under one umbrella because this Avian Influenza is pathogenic virus that could spread to human. That is why we are taking every precautionary step while our counterparts in the Ministry of Health are tracing every human being who might have been in contact with these birds and do the necessary thing.
“14 peacocks were infected and we unfortunately lost all of them. That is why it is necessary to take this action of fumigating this place.
“Our first call is that all the poultry owners should remained calm and very vigilant. This is the disease that portend very high economic lost for the poultry owners. Because this is very critical, because we are living in a very difficult time now. Cost of living is very high and people are looking for what to eat. So, if anything happened to the economic wellbeing of people, it will be very bad. “So, they should be very alert and inquisitive, which many of them are fully aware.
But this is also a time for them to share their knowledge, experience with their colleagues, so that they could minimise the numbers of people visiting their poultry facilities.
“They should also maintain deep feet facilities outside their poultry so that whoever is coming to their poultries would deep in their feet inside it before coming in. They should also restrict the movement of birds within their farms. They should avoid sharing farm instruments to avoid spreading of the disease.”
He advised the poultry owners to raise the alarm if they observed their birds are experience new cattle disease symptoms, which is call ‘dancoder’ which may show the same symptoms, like pink colour feathers, eye redness, cough, runny nose, body aches, fatigue, lumpy feathers, greenish diarrhoea, stressed that they are signs of the avian influenza which must not be taken for granted.
He added that the owner of the farm lodged complaint that their birds were ill which prompted their officers to storm the farm.
“We first of all commenced preliminary investigation and when the pattern of death continue, we became worried and have a thought that this is beyond what we are expected and that was the reason we took some samples from the birds.”
In his reaction, Director, Public Health, Ministry of Health, Abubakar Bagudu, while speaking with newsmen confirmed the virus have not infected any human being so far in the state.
He said: “We are working as one team in this case because we coordinate all the emergency activities at public health centre involving animals, human being and environment as well as information team and other emergency teams to curb the spread of the disease.
In this case, a single case is term as an outbreak. From there, it could spread and affected human being. But we quickly call for a meeting, we activate Emergency Operations Centre (EOC). We have gathered the names of those people who might have contacted the birds and we are monitoring them for 14 days to see if they will develop any of the symptom relating to the virus so that we can send it to laboratory for confirmation. Right now, we came here to fumigate the farm and report will be sent to the national body for their perusal.
“Many samples will be gathered from border’s farms to find out if the virus is coming from the area or other points. We shall also alert all our public health officers across the 21 local government areas.
“Up till now, we have not found any transmission from animals to human. But epidemiologically, we are on top of searching and continue on our investigation to trace where the virus was imported from. And we are going to get to the root of the origin.”
He advised the poultry farm owners to report any usual disease so that precautionary steps could be taken immediately.