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’Incentives needed to curb bird flu in Africa’
2006-03-03 09:41:40
By Anaclet Rwegayura, PST, Addis Ababa
Africa may need an incentive scheme that would encourage poultry farmers to bring their birds out for immunisation or culling in a bid to arrest the escalating H5N1 bird flu crisis, according to United Nation Development Programme (UNDP) Assistant Administrator Gilbert Fossoun Houngbo.
’The incentive should be beyond the regular market price.
I don’t know how exactly we are going to go about it. It’s tricky (but) we need a scheme where all [concerned] will chip in to address the situation,’ he said in Addis Ababa.
It is feared that, without financial compensation, poultry keepers would conceal outbreaks and sell infected birds.
Speaking to journalists at the start of a one-day official visit to Ethiopia, Houngbo congratulated the authorities in Nigeria for being ’very responsive’ and taking strong control measures since the outbreak of the deadly avian influenza virus in the west African country.
Currently, he said, a team of experts jointly led by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) was going around some countries in the region to assess contingency plans put in place by governments to avert the crisis.
The team has been to Benin and Niger and it would proceed to Cameroon and Chad, said Houngbo who is also Director of the UNDP Regional Bureau for Africa.
As the avian flu virus continues to spread in Nigeria, mainly due to the movement and trade of poultry, FAO has warned it could cause a regional disaster.
In the situation in Nigeria, Houngbo said: ’There has been a very good response from the international donor community in providing funds, vaccines and other essential material.’
FAO and WHO, in collaboration with the Inter-African Bureau for Animal Resources of the African Union, are assisting the government in assessing the situation and defining the appropriate strategies to stop the spread of the disease.
In addition, FAO has allocated around one million dollars to support surveillance and control activities in Nigeria, Niger, Algeria, Mauritania, Egypt, and Tunisia.
Other countries are Chad, Benin, Togo, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Gambia, Mali and Cameroon.
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