U.S. says helping to fight Africa bird flu outbreak, By Pascal Fletcher
17 Feb 2006 18:24:08 GMT

DAKAR, Feb 17 (Reuters) - The United States is providing Nigeria with technical assistance and expertise to help fight its bird flu outbreak and is ready to aid neighbouring states to stop the virus spreading, a senior U.S. official said on Friday.

"We're providing the Nigerians with a lot of information and technical assistance, we're cooperating with them," Jendayi Frazer, the United States' top diplomat for Africa, told Reuters in a telephone interview from Yaounde in Cameroon. The deadly H5N1 strain of avian flu was detected in poultry in Africa's most populous country on Feb. 8. ....

Frazer said the United States stood ready to help any other nation in the region which needed assistance to fight bird flu.

"Our (Nigeria) embassy is providing information to neighbouring countries, our ambassadors in-country are providing them with information to try to stave off the spread," she said.

The bird flu virus poses a major health risk across Africa because chickens run free in millions of backyards and are carried live in public transport.

No human case has been found on the continent so far. Detecting such a case will be difficult because mortality rates are high from other diseases and health services are almost non-existent in rural areas, where people are often buried without a medical check. [my emphasis]