H5N1 Spreads in Ghana
Recombinomics Commentary
June 20, 2007
about 1100 birds have been destroyed following the discovery of another case of the Bird flu disease at the border town of Aflao near Lome.
Officials of the Veterinary Service Department detected the virus after a poultry farmer in a community at Aflao took his sick birds to the Veterinary laboratory here in Accra to be tested. The birds reportedly started dying since last Wednesday but did not show any signs of the disease.
The Volta Regional Director of the Veterinary Services, Dr Ben Aniwa told Joy News measures have been put in place in Aflao to prevent the disease from spreading to other parts of the region.
The above comments describe another bird flu outbreak in Ghana. This location is along the coast and near the suspected outbreak in Togo, which is 25 east of Lome, which is on the Benin border.
H5N1 was first reported in Ghana last month, and confirmation of bird flu in Togo would add another country to the list of infected countries. These two countries are surrounded by countries with confirmed H5N1 (Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Nigeria), so infections in Togo and Benin are likely.
H5N1 has also been reported in Niger and Cameroon and sequence analysis of the isolates from western Africa has identified a large number of regional markers, including an complex constellation in the HA sequence from the only confirmed H5N1 case in western Africa. The confirmed positive case raises concerns that the recent outbreaks may be associated with additional human cases.
Media sources
Recombinomics Presentations