March 14, 2006

Afghanistan seeks protective outfits after bird flu found

Afghanistan's cash-strapped government Tuesday pleaded for outside help to acquire protective clothing for its staff after the first possible cases of the deadly bird flu virus were detected in the country.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation said they hoped to know later Tuesday whether five swab samples from backyard poultry farms in the capital, Kabul, and the eastern city of Jalalabad, tested positive for the H5N1 strain of the disease.

The samples have already tested positive for H5, but the virus' specific subtype was not known.

Dr. Azizullah Esmoni, director of the husbandry and veterinary department of the Afghan Agriculture Ministry, said his department lacked the resources to buy protective outfits for its staff.

"We are asking for the international community to help us," he said. "We don't have any protective outfits, chemical disinfectant or flu vaccinations."

Abdul Habib Nowruz, FAO's director of migratory birds in Afghanistan, said the organisation was considering ways to help the government.

Each person working in bird flu-infected areas needs three or four protective outfits a day and each costs about US$50, the equivalent of an Afghan government worker's monthly salary, Nowruz said.

Afghanistan lies at a crossroads for migratory birds, and its neighbors, including Iran and India, have already detected outbreaks. The FAO has long warned of the risk of the virus surfacing here.

The public veterinary system in the country remains weak and there is still no quarantine system to check imported poultry at borders.