bird flu spreads in Burkina Faso

OUAGADOUGOU, May 20 (Reuters) - Burkina Faso is preparing to cull more poultry after the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain of bird flu first detected near the capital last month spread to two more towns, the government said late on Friday.
The disease had been confirmed in Bobo-Dioulasso, the second 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 first confirmed in early April 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 after tests carried out by the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) at its laboratory in Weybridge, England.
Neighbouring Ivory Coast became the sixth African country to be hit by H5N1 this month. The virus has killed more than 100 people round the world since 2003.
World Health Organisation 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 five 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 first found but said that no human cases had been discovered


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