Uganda: Bird Flu Test Kits Arrive

New Vision (Kampala)

November 5, 2006
Posted to the web November 6, 2006

Kampala

THE Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries has acquired bird flu test kits, writes Gladys kalibbala.

The acquisition of the kits is part of the Government's measures to prepare for a possible outbreak of Avian influenza.

Among the materials provided by Pan African Control of Epizootics are Anigen Rapid Ag. test kits, specimen tubes containing assay diluents buffer, sample collection swabs, disposable droppers and protective gear for surveillance teams in case of an outbreak.

The Acting Principal Veterinary Officer for Diagnostics and Epidemiology, Dr. Rose Ademun, recently headed the demonstration to district veterinary officers at Golf View Inn, Entebbe, on how tests should be carried out to ascertain the presence of bird flu in their districts.

Pattern Of Human Ebola Outbreaks Linked To Wildlife And Climate

A visiting biologist at the University of California, San Diego and her colleagues in Africa and Britain have shown that there are close linkages between outbreaks of Ebola hemorrhagic fever in human and wildlife populations, and that climate may influence the spread of the disease.

Bush pig. (Credit: S. Lahm, UCSD)

The decade-long study, published this month (with a cover date of January) in the journal Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, tracked animal disease outbreaks and human exposure to the Ebola virus in Gabon and adjoining northwestern Republic of the Congo (RoC). The researchers found that many additional wildlife and human populations within and outside of known epidemic zones have been exposed to the virus. When they considered disease outbreaks in all mammals, not just humans, the spread of Ebola no longer seemed erratic and inexplicable.

“Some researchers have hypothesized that outbreaks of Ebola are randomly-spaced periodic outbursts, while others have suggested that Ebola has spread like a wave surging over the Central African landscape,” said Sally Lahm, a visiting scholar in UCSD’s Division of Biological Sciences and the primary investigator of the study. “Our results are intermediate between these two views. There is a perceived pattern to the way the virus spreads, but it is not simply a wave affecting everything in its path, since apparently healthy mammal communities thrived in close proximity to Ebola epidemic sites.”

Lahm has been a research associate at the Institute for Research in Tropical Ecology in Makokou, Gabon since 1982. She was conducting unrelated ecological studies when outbreaks of Ebola virus in humans prompted her to explore how the disease was affecting animal populations in the region. Between 1994 and 2003, she collected reports of animal illness and deaths from wildlife survey teams, villagers, hunters, fishers, loggers, miners, Ebola survivors and families of victims from across Gabon and into northwestern RoC.

Despite the low probability of finding dead animals in the humid forests that cover most of the region, due to the scavenging by animals and insects and rapid decomposition, Lahm received and verified reports of 397 dead animals. The carcasses, which were found at 35 different sites in Gabon and RoC, included gorillas, chimpanzees, mandrills, bush pigs, porcupines and four species of antelope. Tests on 14 samples from the decomposed carcasses did not detect the Ebola virus, but at 12 sites, observers also saw sick or dying animals with symptoms consistent with Ebola infection. In addition, 16 reported wildlife mortality incidents coincided with known Ebola epidemics.

“The transmission of Ebola within animal populations is much more widespread than previously believed,” explained Lahm. “Ebola appears to spread both within species and between different species of animals.”

To determine the extent of human exposure to Ebola within Gabon, Lahm collaborated with Maryvonne Kombila, the director of the Department of Tropical Medicine and Parasitology at the University of Health Sciences in Libreville, Gabon and with Robert Swanepoel, the director of the Special Pathogens Branch of the National Institute of Communicable Diseases in Sandringham, South Africa. Swanepoel tested for antibodies to the Ebola virus in more than one-thousand human blood samples that had been collected by Kombila and her colleagues for other research in Gabon between 1981 and 1997.

Fourteen of the blood samples tested positive for antibodies to Ebola. Some people had been exposed at least three years before the first known Ebola outbreak in Gabon, while others lived in regions where no known epidemics had occurred. In 2003, Lahm was able to track down six of the people whose blood samples indicated that they had been exposed to the Ebola virus. Life history interviews revealed that some of the antibody-positive people had never visited a region where known Ebola outbreaks occurred in humans. Therefore people have been exposed to the Ebola virus where it has not been recognized.

Based on their findings, the researchers were able to identify relationships among previously documented Ebola outbreaks in humans and wildlife in Gabon and RoC that initially seemed disparate and unrelated. They proposed that the virus first spread southwest across Gabon. It then looped back toward the northeast from sites in western or central Gabon and caused the most recent outbreaks in RoC.

“If the spread of the Ebola virus follows its current northeastward path, the next outbreak would be expected to occur in northern Republic of the Congo towards Cameroon and the Central African Republic,” predicted Lahm.

However, according to the findings, the spread of Ebola also depends on climate factors. Illness and deaths among animals were most prevalent during periods of prolonged drought-like conditions in the rainforest, which indicates that severe environmental stress may facilitate disease transmission.

In the study, the researchers urge that public education is needed to decrease human contact with potentially infected wildlife by discouraging people from scavenging dead animals and by promoting safe hunting and trapping practices, especially because the results show that outbreaks in wildlife populations have been much more frequent than previously believed. They emphasize that monitoring wildlife in collaboration with rural African residents could provide information essential for protecting public health as well as comprehending the ecology of the disease.

Lahm points out that there remain many unanswered questions about Ebola including how the virus spreads within and between mammal species.

“Our study provides more pieces of the puzzle, but at the same time it is enlarging the puzzle,” she noted.

Richard Barnes from the Environmental Sciences Research Center at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, England, who is currently a visiting scholar in UCSD’s Division of Biological Sciences, also contributed to the study.

Conservation International provided support for the study.

CONGO: Still vulnerable to avian flu

[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

BRAZZAVILLE, 20 Nov 2006 (IRIN) - The avian flu threat continues to hang over the Republic of Congo because, despite a ban, imported poultry and its products still appear in the country’s markets and it is on the flight path of European migratory birds.

"The avian flu worries us no end because this country is already devastated by epidemics, particularly the Ebola virus hemorrhagic fever," Jean-Joseph Akouala, head of epidemiology services for the Department to Fight the Avian Flu in the Ministry of Health, told IRIN.

To avert the initial threat the government produced a 15-point emergency influenza prevention plan, principally banning poultry and poultry product imports. In February, it set up an Interdepartmental National Committee, with a one-billion-franc CFA (about US$2 million) budget under the prime minister, to monitor and prevent an epidemic. The committee immediately opened offices in each of the country's 11 administrative departments, manned by specialists in environmental, affairs, fishing, agriculture and animal husbandry.

However, this has failed to stem the direct imports and those routed though neighbouring countries that elude health officials.

"Our borders are permeable," Gabriel Eleka, the director of public health at the Ministry of Health, said.

Furthermore, there is no legal sanction for those defying the ban, although police and customs agents are allowed to burn these products without compensating the owners.

Another factor increasing the potential for a bird flu attack is the lack of an integrated disease monitoring system among the countries within the central Africa region. Given that the Congo River Basin constitutes a single biosphere with a concentration of viruses and epidemics, this omission is all the more worrying.

"Unfortunately, the Congo Basin is a weak point as regards the response to epidemics," Jean-Vivien Mombouli, the technical adviser at the Ministry of Health and research director at the National Public Health Laboratory, said.

So, despite all the measures taken to prohibit poultry imports from Asia and South America, these are still found in the country's markets. The government says these and other food imports are worth 100 billion francs CFA each year (US$202.8 million). Given that this weakness provides an avenue for possible introduction of the bird flu virus, the government has set up a national food committee called Codex, to test the quality of food available for public consumption.

Public Apathy

In February and March dead birds were found in the Congo, giving rise to fears that the virus had arrived in the country, especially since this occurred at a time when neighbouring Cameroon was affected. Samples sent to South Africa for laboratory analysis proved negative. However, officials said the methods used to collect the samples could have been defective, thereby possibly leading to false negatives readings. "The techniques used to extract the samples were not good," said Mombouli.

The negative test results have relaxed people’s attitude to the virus, to the point of apathy. "People no longer talk about it and think that the disease is under control. [But] it is still there, even if it has not yet arrived at our doorstep.

"It is a viral disease and the virus cannot really be controlled. At this moment, the whole world is fighting to avoid a genetic mutation to the point that the virus jumps from human to human," Akouala said.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), on rare occasions the H5N1 virus has crossed the species barrier to infect humans. Normally, it is only transmitted between birds and, less commonly, pigs.

In Africa, the H5N1 virus has broken out in Nigeria, Niger, Egypt, Cameroon and Sudan. Taking into account the Congo's equatorial location and porous borders with the Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Gabon and Cameroon, it may have to devise and apply tighter control measures than those taken so far if it is to ensure containment and elimination of the virus if it appears.

[CONGO: Interview with Dr Jean Vivien Mombouli on threat of avian flu]

lmm/oss/mw

[ENDS]

This is the type of problem they are going to run into in Africa. Lots of mistrust there.

COTE D IVOIRE: Suspicion and denial over bird flu

[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

ABATTA, 7 Dec 2006 (IRIN) - Poultry breeders in Cote d’Ivoire have accused the government of inventing two recent cases of bird flu in an attempt to slow down local production and cash in on pricier imported birds ahead of the Christian and Muslim holiday season.

“Here nobody really believes in bird flu,” said Ibrahim Bakayoko, manager of one of the dozen poultry farms around Abatta, 30 km northeast of the main city, Abidjan. “It is only in the press that we were informed of the discovery of the illness in our area. Health authorities arrived here and all of the poultry farmers expressed our unhappiness. It strongly resembles a plot to slow down our production.”

The central veterinary laboratory in Bingerville identified two cases of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu last month in two turkeys in Abatta. They were the first reported cases of bird flu in Cote d’Ivoire since April.

International health authorities have warned that Africa is unprepared to handle bird flu, especially if it were to mutate into a virus that could easily pass from one human to another. Bird flu is lethal in fowl and worldwide has infected at least 258 people and killed more than 154 of them since 2003.

An international conference on avian flu is being held in Bamako, Mali, which includes a donor conference on Friday to seek funds to help fight the illness. Much of the money raised is expected to go to Africa. Cote d’Ivoire, Nigeria, Cameroon, Burkina Faso and Sudan are among the African countries that have detected the presence of H5N1 in poultry and birds.

Livelihoods threatened

The cases of bird flu in Cote d’Ivoire in April resulted in the culling of some 2,000 domestic fowl. Authorities also ordered millions of doses of animal vaccine to halt the spread of the H5N1 strain of the illness.

In addition to poor laboratory capacity and inadequate health infrastructure, Africa’s ability to cope with bird flu is further compromised by its poverty. Preventive measures such as culling birds have profound effects on already impoverished communities that live off selling poultry and other farm produce.

Citing the recent threat of avian flu among domestic fowl, the Ivorian government reduced the import tax on poultry by 50 percent to help meet demand for upcoming Christian, Muslim and New Year holidays.

“We are against this decision. The government doesn’t want to boost our income. They want to kill the poultry network,” said Jean-Marie Aka, president of an Ivorian network of poultry producers known as Ipravi. “People should know that the chickens that are imported from neighbouring countries and the West are going to be poured out on the local market like toxic waste and no one will be able to prove that they’re clean.”

Measures taken

Dr. Bian Tano, programme officer with the United Nations World Health Organisation (WHO), told IRIN that 76 unspecified poultry had been culled on the farm where the recent cases of bird flu were reported and general surveillance measures were undertaken to prevent the disease from spreading to neighbouring farms.

“Due to the health measures taken, with the systematic culling of the two turkeys carrying the virus and with the vaccination of poultry where the turkeys were being traditionally raised, the illness was contained,” said veterinarian Kanga Kouame, the national coordinator for the fight against avian flu.

The government in May imposed a ban on poultry imports after cases of bird flu were discovered near Abidjan. All poultry breeders were called on to adopt rigorous health, sanitation and security measures and to intensify vaccinations to prevent additional cases of bird flu.

The government lifted the ban in September.

Suspicions linger

Poultry producers have threatened to disrupt the poultry market if their grievances are not taken into account. For many of them, poultry production is their only source of revenue. International bird flu specialists have said more effective programmes are needed to compensate farmers when culling is carried out.

Of the 5,000 chickens on Bakayoko’s farm near Abatta, he said more than half have already been ordered for the holidays. Nationally, poultry producers say they are prepared to put 2.5 million fowl on the market for the end-of-year festivities.

Abatta residents say further measures should be taken to find the origins of the most recently infected poultry. They believe the turkeys were contaminated elsewhere.

“Nobody here raises turkeys,” Bakayoko said. “We ask ourselves how they could come from here.”