No avian influenza yet detected in Sudan – official

April 8, 2006 (KHARTOUM) — Sudan is free of avian influenza announced Sudanese official on Saturday, April 8. This announce came while neighbouring Egypt confirmed cases of the H5N1 strain of bird flu virus.

The undersecretary in the Ministry of Animal Resources, Ahmad Mustafah Hassan, has confirmed that Sudan is free from bird flu. He said the killer virus has not been detected in Khartoum State following the tests which have been conducted.

He said the citizens should not fear to consume chicken products saying that primary test conducted on some dead chickens in Khartoum have confirmed that the birds died due Newcastle disease.

He said other test will be conducted and that the preventory measures taken against some farms in Khartoum were just routine procedures, to prevent other farms from being affected should there be an outbreak of the disease.

Amid a media frenzy over the discovery of H5N1 in Egypt, other neighbouring as Eritrea, Ethiopia and Uganda said no confirmed definitive presence of avian influenza.

The Ministry of Health in Egypt has announced the country’s 11th case of human infection with the H5N1 avian virus and its third death. The case occurred in an 18-year-old girl from the Minufiyah governorate, north of Cairo. She developed symptoms on 29 March, was hospitalized on 5 April, and died today.

Ethiopia, along with other east African Rift Valley nations such as Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, are considered at high risk for the spread of the virus as millions of migratory birds flock there during the European winter.

Last Monday 3 April, the West African country, Burkina Faso, confirmed it had found the virus in poultry at a motel on the outskirts of the capital Ouagadougou, making it the fifth African country to report the disease after Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon and Egypt.

(ST)