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H5N1 Bird Flu in Burkina Faso?
Recombinomics Commentary
March 5, 2006
The small village of Bazoulé, located at 30 km with l`ouest of Ouagadougou, knew last month a mysterious disease which made important devastations among the farmyard poultries.
In addition to chickens, the village recorded the massive death of ducks, guinea fowls, turkeys, pigeons and even of vultures for the same period.
According to victims', two minutes suffice for this disease to kill chicken and it takes thirty minutes to decimate all the poultry d`une farmyard, whatever its importance.
The usual chief of Bazoulé, which lost on this occasion more than 300 gallinacés, finds that this disease is different from the ordinary disease of chickens.
C`est what explains can be the fear of l`infirmier of the village, Souleymane Kanfando, which compares this disease with the aviary influenza and which, in addition to the pigeons and the vultures, lost in a few hours l`essentiel what composed its farmyard.
The above translation suggests bird flu has arrived in Burkina Faso. The rapid massive deaths in many species, including waterfowl, is characteristic of H5N1 bird flu. The location of Ouagadougo is also suggestive of bird flu. To the east H5N1 has been confirmed in Nigeria and Niger. To the west birds have died in Mauritania and WHO is investigating bird deaths to the north in Mali.
Burkina Faso is in Black Sea Mediterranean flyway, which includes Siberia, Turkey, Iraq, Egypt, Nigeria, and Niger, all of which have reported large outbreaks of confirmed H5N1. The location is also close to the East Africa West Asia flyway as well as the East Atlantic flyway. The confirmed outbreaks in Africa suggests H5N1 infections is widespread throughout the continent. But the convergence of three major flyways in western Africa suggests H5N1 infections in that area may be highest.
This convergence will lead to extensive missing of various versions of the Qinghai strain. Currently only a partial sequence of a Nigerian isolate has been made available. Other isolates from Europe, the Middle East, and Africa has not been made available to the public. Many sequences are being hoarded at the WHO website, which is password protected.
The Qinghai strain sequences are likely to continue to rapidly evolve. H5N1 is spread over a large geographical area and involves several distinct flyways that overlap and converge.
Analysis of the movement and evolution of H5N1 would be aided by the sequestered sequences, which WHO should immediately release.
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