UN sends team of experts to Sudan to fight bird flu

April 20, 2006 (KHARTOUM) — The United Nations has sent a team of experts to Sudan to fight an outbreak of bird flu in the country, a U.N. official said Wednesday.

Scientists and technicians from the World Health Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization had already begun working in the capital, Khartoum, Jan Pronk, the representative for the U.N. Secretary General in Sudan, told reporters.

The announcement came a day after Sudanese authorities confirmed that the H5N1 strain of avian influenza, which can be deadly to humans, had been detected in Khartoum and in central Sudan.

Authorities had previously said the owner of a poultry farm was being treated for the disease at a hospital intensive care unit. But the Health Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday that “after thorough investigation, the only suspected case of bird flu has turned out to be negative.” There were no other suspected cases of human infection, the ministry said.

Five large poultry farms were destroyed north of the capital, and tens of thousands of birds have been killed, authorities said.

One egg merchant in the capital, Hassab Al Rasoul, said people had stopped buying his products, even at discounted prices.

“We are hurt and would like the media to help us explain that boiled egg is not harmful,” he complained Wednesday on a live broadcast on national television.

In neighboring Egypt, four people have died of bird flu in recent weeks. The H5N1 strain of bird flu has been confirmed in several African countries including Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon and Burkina Faso.

The WHO has reported 190 human cases of bird flu worldwide — more than 100 of them fatal — and the strain has forced the slaughter of millions of birds as the disease has spread from Asia to Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

(ST/AP)