About 240 dead birds were found in the coastal town of Limbe, near the Nigerian border and several hundred kilometers from the northern town of Maroua, where Cameroon's first outbreak was confirmed in a duck, the United Nations Integrated Regional Information Network reported yesterday. Agriculture Minister Aboubakary Sarki is visiting northern provinces to review control measures, the report said.
Twenty new outbreaks in poultry of the H5N1 avian influenza strain were reported to the World Organization for Animal Health in the week ending March 16, boosted by infections on farms in Nigeria and Romania. The disease in poultry raises the risk of human cases and creates opportunities for the virus to mutate into a pandemic form that may kill millions of people.
From Bloomberg. The article is a good summary of the latest outbreaks:
France reported a new H5N1 infection in a wild duck in the Ain region, near the border with Switzerland. France had its first outbreak of the disease in birds last month.
In Romania, several domestic hens in Magurele, 20 kilometers (12 miles) east of the capital Bucharest, tested positive for the H5 subtype of bird flu after health authorities sampled poultry in the area. Authorities are testing to see whether the virus is the H5N1 type that can infect humans.
[...] Israel last week became the 29th country this year to report an initial H5N1 outbreak in either wild birds or fowl.
[...] In Nigeria, Africa's most-populous country, the virus spread to the southwestern state of Lagos, said Abdulsalami Nasidi, head of the Nigerian health task force charged with coordinating efforts to halt the spread of the virus. The affected farm was close to the Ogun state border and the virus hasn't been found near the city of Lagos, where about 11 million people live, since H5N1 was first reported in Nigeria six weeks ago, he said.
Finally,
A third Egyptian may have been infected with H5N1, Agence France-Press reported, citing Health Minister Hatem al-Gabali.
Pakistan confirmed bird flu in poultry today and Malaysia found new outbreaks in the North of the country.