Nigeria's bird flu epidemic has spread to two new states, bringing to eight the number of regions affected since the country found Africa's first outbreak of the deadly H5N1 virus strain. And several cases of H5N1 have been detected in Niger, Nigeria's northern neighbour, the head of the Paris-based World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), Bernard Vallat, said Monday.
Nigerian Information Minister Frank Nweke said "surveillance visits to states across the country and confirmatory tests in samples taken from the bird population in the states so far visited ... confirms the occurrence of the avian flu in two new states, namely Yobe and Nassarawa."
Last week, the Nigerian government said the disease had been found in six states -- Kano, Kaduna, Plateau, Bauchi, Katsina and Zamfara -- as well as the capital Abuja and its surrounds.
However Nweke said further tests had excluded Zamfara.
"Further confirmatory tests conducted at the OIE Reference Laboratory in Italy on bird tissue samples earlier taken from Zamfara State have turned out negative," he said.
But he warned that Zamfara "remains at risk because of its contiguity to other states where the outbreak had been recorded."
He said the government would support affected states by providing personal protective equipment and offer training to local veterinary officials, poultry farmers and other stakeholders.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) is currently leading a capacity-building programme in Nigeria for tests against human contamination of the deadly bird flu virus, its body's representative in Nigeria told AFP on Monday.
"There is nothing alarming on the human health front in Nigeria, surveillance is on for the populations identified to be at risk", Mohamed Belhocine said on telephone.
A warning alarm and rapid response mechanism are already on ground while very serious efforts to have results directly in Abuja are also being undertaken, he said.
There are also experts working in laboratories in Jos (central) for veterinary activities, and in Ibadan (southwest) for human, while the possibility of doing both in Abuja should be in place soon, he also said.
"Tests carried on three persons -- two children and a dead woman -- proved negative," he added.
The Nigerian information minister reaffirmed a ban on inter-state movement of poultry, carrying of poultry in passenger vehicles and the intra-state movement of birds outside a three kilometre radius, especially in already affected states.
He commended state governments which have established task forces to manage the crisis within their respective states, urging those that have not done so to do so even if the flu had not affected poultry within their domain.
Nweke said the west African country had no reported human cases of the avian flu virus, "however, poultry farmers and workers are strongly advised to observe bio-security and safety measures and limit contact with sick birds."
A Niger government spokesman, Mohammed Ben Omar, told AFP by telephone that authorities in Niamey were still awaiting confirmation of H5N1.
Livestock Resources Minister Djina Abdoulaye said samples had been tested from dead birds found in the Margaria region in Zinder province in the south of the country, neighbouring Nigeria's Kano state.
Nigeria, which is home to some 130 million people, is Africa's most populous nation and one of the government's main worries is to prevent the spread of the disease to the teeming southwest and the city of Lagos.
The country's poultry population is estimated at 140 million. Backyard farmers account for 60 percent of all poultry producers, commercial farmers for 25 percent and semi-commercial farmers for 15 percent.
