Some 232,385 birds have been exposed to the dreaded bird flu disease in 11 states of the federation according to a new statistics released by the Federal Government with 51,444 mortalities so far recorded.
The states are Lagos, Kano, Edo, Plateau, Gombe, Imo, Jigawa, Ogun, Rivers, Delta and Oyo.
“The worst hit state is Kano as a total of 136,905 birds have been exposed to the infection with a mortality rate of 17,987 representing 13 percent. The cases were found in Gwale, Kunbotso, Tofa, Gaya and Ungogo local governments.”
The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina who made the announcement on Wednesday said with the increasing number of states and birds exposed as well as the level of mortality, it has become necessary to trigger additional emergency measures to rapidly contain the spread of the virus.
In implication is that the virus has spread to four more states from the previous seven recorded last week.
Speaking in Abuja during an Emergency Meeting on Avian Influenza with all Commissioners of Agriculture said the emergency measures would include intensified surveillance, depopulation, quarantine and decontamination of the infected farms and live birds markets.
However, Adesina said that there was no cause for alarm as poultry products are still safe for consumption.
“I wish to assure Nigerians that Nigeria will successfully control the bird flu outbreak. We have successfully controlled it in the past. I have directed the immediate trigger of all the protocols under the Emergency Response Plan for the Avian Influenza used during the last outbreak in 2006.”
He also, directed immediate compensation of N145,145 million be paid to all the 39 affected farms across nine states at the rate of N1450 per bird within 72 hours. The states are Kano, Lagos, Ogun, Rivers, Delta, Edo, Plateau, Gombe, Imo, Oyo and Jigawa.
The compensation would cover the farms where birds have been depopulated, saying about 110,000 have been depopulated, in which there has been a total exposure of 144,539 birds. Adesina added that before the commencement of the depopulation, a total of 44,489 birds had suffered mortality.
He said the compensation was born out of the need to ensure timely reporting of outbreak by poultry farmers and to ensure poultry farms that were depopulated as a result of the outbreak do not go down in business.
Adesina said his ministry was providing logistics for the distribution decontaminants, disinfectants across all poultry farms, directing that the department of quarantine service both at the federal and state levels be activated to contain movement of poultry across states.
He observed that wild birds without commercial value are usually the carrier of the virus, the minister stated that the ministry would ensure containment of movement of such birds. “We want to have a restriction within the affected states of least 3km so we have a total quarantine zone.”
