Poultry trade seen as main bird flu risk in Africa

PRETORIA, March 9 (Reuters) The poultry trade poses a bigger risk for the spread of bird flu in Africa than migratory birds, experts said today after a Southern African Development Community (SADC) meeting on the issue.

''They (migratory birds) can participate in the spread of the disease. But in our case we should be more worried with the trade of poultry products,'' said Dr Bonaventure Mtei, the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) representative to SADC, an economic grouping of 14 southern African nations.

''The poultry is everywhere and yet veterinary services are nowhere.'' The three-day meeting in South Africa was attended by SADC experts from the fields of medicine and veterinary services.

The H5N1 strain of bird flu has killed at least 96 people since 2003 in Asia and the West Asia and has been found among birds in Europe as well as the west African nations of Nigeria and Niger.

Porous borders and a flourishing informal chicken trade were seen as key reasons for the spread of avian flu in the region.

''Nigeria and Niger are neighbouring countries. But people don't recognise the border, and they trade freely with each other,'' Dr Modibo Traore, director of the African Union's Inter-African Bureau for Animal Resources, told journalists.

The role of migrating wild fowl versus the trade in bird products in the spread of avian flu has been the source of much debate, with conservationists contending the disease's spread has not closely followed known bird migration routes.

Scientists have not reached a consensus on the issue.

South Africa, which dealt decisively in the past with outbreaks of the less virulent H5N2 strain of avian flu among ostriches, is by far the best equipped in the region to deal with the disease. The country's veterinary monitoring and infrastructure are unrivalled on the world's poorest continent.

Officials would not discuss which countries in SADC -- which stretches from South Africa to Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) -- were the least prepared to contend with an outbreak.

But in war-battered countries such as Angola and the DRC and impoverished ones like Malawi, the capacity to detect or fight an outbreak is extremely limited.

Officials said collective measures such as banning poultry imports from infected countries to the SADC region as a whole were being considered but had not yet been put into place.

REUTERS KD VC2138