The Officer-in-Charge, Veterinary Clinic in Gwale Local Government Area of Kano State, Abdullahi Abubakar Gaya has revealed how the index case of the recent bird flu was identified in the state.
Speaking to journalists on Wednesday, Gaya explained that the index case was a guinea fowl brought into a backyard farm of 50 birds.
He said, “What really happened, this outbreak is on the 7th of December last year, one young man came to me, fortunately enough he met me. I was the one that made the presumptive diagnosis. He presented his guinea fowl with a complaint of sudden death in his backyard farm.
“So when he came, he laid his complaint and I examined the birds, added with the history he gave me about the sudden death of the birds. It was a mixed backyard farm: a guinea fowl, a duck, a chicken, and turkey. So these are the types of birds he rears.
So he went and purchased a guinea fowl from the Janguza market, almost a week before the onset of that incident. After he bought that guinea fowl, two of them and one chicken, he noticed they started becoming weak, then they became depressed and they died. After they died, then the rest of the birds started becoming weak also. That was how he then started slaughtering some of them.
“That was when he brought the initial guinea fowl we sent for testing. So when he came to Gwale, he met me after examining. So we took samples and sent them to NBRI, our reference National Laboratory and they confirmed it was a case of H5N1 (highly pathogenic avian influenza). So that is what happened.”
Gaya said respiratory illness usually surges this season, advising that birds and animals in general must be isolated when bought, before mixing them with the already kept ones to avoid risk of infecting others.
When asked about the number of cases recorded so far he said, “Currently, this particular index case is the confirmed case we have, but surveillance activities are underway, we are already in operation.
“We are already conducting surveillance activities to find many more cases, but currently it is only this case that is being confirmed. The birds of the young man were 50. It was a backyard farm. Not 50 affected, but he has 50 birds because some of them are still alive, but the majority have died and he slaughtered some,” he added.
Meanwhile, reacting to the development, the state Commissioner for Health, Dr. Abubakar Labaran Yusuf, urged people of the state to remain calm, saying the case was not worrisome to be declared an outbreak.
The commissioner said that the ministry was on top of the issue and taking proactive measures to contain the disease.
Dr. Labaran said that due to the fact that bird flu infects human and causes havoc to the body, he convened a meeting with Emergency Preparedness Response and One Health committees comprising ministries of agriculture, environment and water resources as well as partners in order to discuss and strategise ways to confronting the issue.
He stated, “For now, this was what we have been doing. Meeting would be held every week with the stakeholders, and the public would be regularly informed about the issue.
“Surveillance would be intensified in every LGA, especially among poultry and other bird rearers and reports would be sent to these committees on a daily basis and inform Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf of the situation.”
The commissioner explained that symptoms of bird flu include fever, mucous, redness of eyes, among others, urging people especially the poultry rearers to be the first surveillance officers in order to safeguard their flocks and report unhealthy wellbeing of their birds to relevant authorities for timely action to be taken.
