Symptoms of bird flu found in Nigerian city
AFP
May 17, 2006

Symptoms of bird flu have been detected on a farm near the city of Kano in northern Nigeria, a month after the area was declared clear of the virus, an official said.

Shehu Bawa, head of Kano State committee on the control of avian flu, said symptoms of the deadly strain of the H5N1 bird flu virus were found among poultry on a farm in Kakara village, 15 kilometres (nine miles) outside Kano.
"We have detected on Monday the presence of avian flu virus among 16,000 chickens on a farm in Kakara, thereby breaking a 24-day lull," said Bawa, who heads a culling team of veterinary doctors.

Eleven samples of dead chickens from the farm were taken to the National Veterinary Research Institute in Vom in central Plateau State for laboratory analysis.

But Bawa said he did not need to wait for the laboratory results. "I can say with certainty that the case we are dealing with is bird flu because all the symptoms are identical with the hundreds of thousands of cases we have dealt with in the past few months," he said.

The virus has so far been identified in 12 states, including Lagos, as well as around the federal capital Abuja, since it was first confirmed in Nigeria four months ago.

So far no human cases have been detected in Nigeria's estimated 130 million-strong population, but more than 450,000 birds have either died or been killed as part of preventive measures.