AFRICA - Africa discusses avian flu threat

Libreville (Fides Service)- '”The appearance of avian flu in south east Asia, Europe and more recently in Africa is a cause for serious concern in the international community”, the president of Gabon Omar Bongo Ondimba said when he opened a Conference on Avian Flu in Africa organised by the United Nations in Libreville, Gabon. Representatives of forty six African countries are taking part in the meeting which opened 20 March.
“For Africans this disease comes as an additional challenge to the well known evils of poverty, AIDS, malaria and others”, Gabon’s president affirmed. Officially so far only four African countries, Cameroon, Egypt, Niger and Nigeria, have registered the presence of the lethal H5N1 virus on their territory. And only one African, in Egypt, has died of the infection. However experts agree that other outbreaks on the continent are bound to follow and the continent’s general poor hygiene and sanitary conditions could lead to a disastrous pandemic. “Close contact between humans and animals in family run farms, the lack of information and insufficient extension of veterinary services are obstacles to timely prevention” said World Health Organisation director for Africa Dr Luis Gomes Sambo. Besides a direct threat of the disease, the spread of avian flu could trigger an economic and food catastrophe caused by the necessary culling of poultry en masse. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 21/3/2006 righe 24 parole 264)