Nigeria seeking suspected human bird flu cases

DANBARE, Nigeria (Reuters) - Nigeria scrambled on Saturday to discover whether people who had fallen ill close to where the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus was found had caught the disease and farmers culled thousands more sick chickens.

No human case of bird flu has been confirmed in Africa's most populous country, where H5N1 has killed tens of thousands of poultry, but it is hard for authorities to monitor because of logistical problems and the high mortality from other diseases.

"There are a few suspected cases ... We're trying to locate them but our sources can't provide us with addresses for now," said Abdulsalam Nasidi, who is in charge of the response to bird flu as a threat to humans at the federal Health Ministry.

He said epidemiologists were searching for two people feared to have contracted bird flu in the northern state of Kaduna, close to Sambawa Farms where one of the poultry samples was found that tested positive for H5N1.