Nigeria to make announcement on bird flu in humans
Source: Reuters
LAGOS, Jan 31 (Reuters) - Nigeria will release the results of tests made on 14 suspected human cases of bird flu later on Wednesday, an official said. Africa's most populous country, Nigeria was the first on the continent to detect the deadly H5N1 virus in poultry last year but it has not had a confirmed human case. Scientists declined to comment on the results of four rounds of tests concluded on Tuesday on 14 samples, taken from three people who died of flu symptoms and 11 who came into contact with them. "The minister of information will make a press release later today," said Abdulsalam Nasidi, a bird flu expert at the Health Ministry. One scientist involved in the testing said after three rounds of tests that some had produced a positive result for H5N1, but the results were inconsistent and the findings were unreliable. He has declined to comment on the result of the fourth round of testing which ended on Tuesday. Nigeria is due to send the same samples to two foreign laboratories for confirmation of local findings. The Mill Hill laboratory in London is one of WHO's Collaborating Centres which meet the U.N. health agency's "gold standard" for testing of samples for the deadly H5N1 virus. The H5N1 strain of bird flu remains primarily an animal disease but it can kill people who come into close contact with infected birds. It has killed 164 people around the globe since 2003 and experts fear it could spark a deadly pandemic if it mutates into a form that passes easily from person to person. Nigeria detected bird flu in chicken in northern Kaduna state a year ago. The virus has since spread to 17 of Nigeria's 36 states despite measures such as culling, quarantine and bans on transporting live poultry.
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