Luxor case sparks fresh fears of country s ability to deal with another outbreak
CAIRO: With the discovery of another avian flu case in poultry last Friday in Luxor, Ministry of Health (MOH) officials announced a slight shift in their strategy to combat the disease s spread. MOH spokesman Abdel Rahman Shaheen said it s unlikely the government will impose a ban on domestic poultry breeding as it did last year.
A ban would lead many to conceal their birds, heightening the danger rather than quelling it, said Shahine.
The government rounded up as many as 30 million birds last winter from backyard farms around the country and placed a ban on domestic breeding that only expired with the beginning of summer. But while the ban found partial success in urban centers such as Cairo and Alexandria, few complied in rural governorates since raising poultry often constitutes citizens’ lone source of income. Egypt is home to an estimated 1.5 million poultry farmers.
At least 15 human bird flu cases have been recorded in Egypt since its outbreak in February. Seven of the 15 have died, with the most recent death coming Oct. 30. Egypt has the highest number of bird flu-related deaths of any non-Asian country, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Talib Ali, regional animal health and production officer for the Food and Agriculture Organization, a United Nations organization, says the actual number of bird flu cases in poultry may be higher. The new avian flu cases, he says, are reported by the government s Central Poultry Laboratory, which collected 2,800 random samples from 200 villages in nine governorates. An effective survey, he says, must be conducted on a wider scale and be accompanied by fair compensation for poultry owners whose chickens are rounded up and destroyed. Ali says the government allocated just LE 50 million for compensation for 30 million culled chickens as a result of the virus spreading to Egypt last winter. A fair system needs to set aside at least LE 500 million for compensation, he says.
Any surveillance system must be accompanied with a fair and transparent compensation scheme, says Ali. Otherwise people will not give up their chickens.
Another MOH spokesman Sayyid El-Abasi, told The Daily Star Egypt the ministry has designed a specific plan of action to counter the spread of the disease, but declined to discuss the details.
So far, the government appears to be implementing procedures similar to last year, with the exception of banning private poultry farming. In the Luxor case, for example, the entire area of Naj Al-Abayda, where several chickens tested positive for the disease, was quarantined and all birds within the area were destroyed. The government s actions are endorsed by WHO, provided poultry owners are compensated properly. WHO has also praised the government for its transparency in dealing with the disease by reporting all detected cases.
No word was immediately available from the government or Naj Al-Abayda residents on the amount of compensation awarded to poultry owners, if any.
Last year’s outbreak of the disease raised poultry and egg prices by as much as 200 percent. Prices have since dropped gradually but have not reached pre-flu levels. The price of a live chicken per kg dipped under the LE 9 mark in most Cairo neighborhoods for the first time in September since it topped LE 12 in May. The relatively newly introduced frozen chickens have maintained their value at LE 12 to LE 13 per kg. This month, eggs dropped to LE 0.50 each from their LE 0.65 high maintained since May, compared with LE 0.25 to LE 0.30 prior to the appearance of the flu last winter.
WHO estimates Egyptians rely on poultry for 60 percent of their animal protein intake.
People need animal protein, Ali says. People want meat; they want eggs. So they are ready to break any law.
