Kano poultry farmers fault report of bird flu outbreak

Poultry farmers in Kano have faulted the reported outbreak of bird flu, saying what happened was a single case and no farm has recorded the sudden death of birds.

The Chairman, Poultry Farmers Association, Dr Usman Gwarzo, said this appealed to the government to bring back quarantine service to guard against unnecessary movement of birds and poultry products from other parts of the country to Kano.

Daily Trust reported that the federal government had confirmed the outbreak of highly pathogenic Avian influenza (HPAI) in Kano

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Reacting to the development, Dr Gwarzo said mentioning of outbreak of any type created panic when what really happened in Kano was a single case.

“I am a medical epidemiologist, when you consider an outbreak is when it involves more than one farm. But in Kano, none of the farms reported any case of sudden death of birds and so is a single incident.

“ But naturally, to protect our investment and the health of our population, we started engaging with our members to take care of risk factors and the commonest factor in Kano is market-market, market-farm interaction where people go to sell chicken and you know naturally, in some settings, sick birds are commonly taken to sell in the markets.

“ So, it is a very serious issue. We had a bad case in 2016 the last time a massive outbreak occurred in Kano. The message I want to send is that we are not in an emergency situation. None of our 800 members reported unusual death of birds,” he said.

When our reporter visited Gwale Veterinary Clinic where the index case was first reported, none of the doctors was willing to speak, suggesting that the state ministries of health and agriculture had begun further investigation on the first case.

However, chicken sellers at Post Office Road like Kabiru Bala and Mustapha Falalu said they are not aware of any outbreak of bird flu, adding that the market was fumigated by the authorities last week.