While trying desperately to cope with the scourge of the dreaded HIV/AIDS virus, the human race was once again beset with the problem of grappling with fast-spreading and lethal pandemic called bird flu. Also called avian influenza, bird flu’s vicious strain, H5NI, was spread from birds to humans and could be as deadly as HIV/AIDS. The pandemic had ravaged many countries in Europe, Asia and Middle East resulting in a high death toll in livestock, but as yet with a few human casualties.
As the pandemic made its steady spread, there was the fear that if it ever gets to Africa, the consequences would be devastating in view of the continent’s lack of infrastructure and money to keep it in control. This fear was consequent upon African countries’’ unenviable response to emergencies in the past, like drought in some sahelian countries or flooding along the coast. It was against this frightening background that many Nigerians were thrown into panic following the announcement on Wednesday the 8th of February, 2006, that the bird flu had indeed entered Nigeria.
The announcement itself was a sequel to the death of a large number of birds in a farm in Kaduna State whose samples were diagnosed at the National Veterinary Institute, Vom, Plateau State, and confirmed at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Diagnostic Centre in Rome, Italy. Several follow-up actions had been taking to try and halt the spread of the virus in the country, such as the immediate quarantine of the affected farms, the killing and disposal of all infested and surviving birds in affected farms and the restriction of movement of people in and outside such farms. Commendable as these measures were, many Nigerians still dreaded the chicken and had already excluded its meat from their menu. As a result, poultry farmers in Nigeria were counting their losses instead of producing more protein and smiling to the bank with good sales.
to return to the status quo ante and restore the confidence of Nigerians in poultry products, additional measures were suggested, namely the close monitoring of migratory birds which flock into the country at different times of the year, the proper caging of all free-range birds and appropriate sanctioning of defaulting owners, not restricting the monitoring of poultry farms in the country to the urban centres only, the upward review of the compensation paid to farmers whose birds had been destroyed to cushion the effects of their loss, the strict enforcement of the restriction on the importation of poultry products and , lastly the leadership demonstrating, by example, that it was safe to eat poultry products by serving them at dinners and banquets during state functions.