India said it was testing dozens of people for bird flu on Sunday, while France confirmed its first avian cases of the H5N1 virus as the deadly strain spread around the globe.
The Indian government said on Sunday that earlier fears of the country’s first human victim were unfounded, after “preliminary” tests on a dead farmer showed he was not affected.
“Preliminary investigations by the rapid response teams at Navapur indicate that this patient had no exposure to poultry,” a federal health ministry statement said.
Spreading disease
Avian influenza has flared anew in recent weeks, spreading among birds in Europe and parts of Africa, and prompting authorities to impose bans on the poultry trade, introduce mass culling and vaccinate poultry flocks.
In India, officials launched an emergency campaign to try to contain the virus, which experts fear might mutate to allow it to pass between people, potentially triggering a pandemic.
Another official said blood samples of 30 people from bird flu-hit Nandurbar district in western Maharashtra state had been sent for testing for the H5N1 virus, a top official told Reuters.
“All these people were showing flu-like symptoms and we have sent their blood and sputum samples for testing for bird flu,” said Vijay Satbir Singh, the state’s top health official, said.
India, the world’s second most populous nation and a major poultry producer, reported its first bird flu cases in poultry on Saturday, after 50,000 birds died in Maharashtra.
In France, Europe’s biggest poultry producer, the farm ministry confirmed that a duck found dead on Monday in the east of the country had H5N1.
France’s H5N1 case was one of several wild ducks found dead near Lyon in a region famous for the quality of its chickens.
Elsewhere, authorities in northern Spain are testing a duck found dead in lake to see if it carried H5N1, while Britain said bird flu was now more likely to reach its shores.
Europe on alert
Germany and Austria have reported more cases of bird flu, while authorities in Bulgaria put a man in an isolation chamber and were testing him for H5N1 after two of his ducks died.
The disease has also spread to Egypt, which reported its first cases of H5N1 on Friday, while in Nigeria authorities are culling poultry and urging people not to eat sick birds after outbreaks there.
Indonesia confirmed on Saturday that a 19th person had died of bird flu, which has been reported in chickens and other domesticated fowl in most provinces of the sprawling country of 220 million people.
The H5N1 virus is known to have infected 171 people worldwide since late 2003, killing 93 of them. Two hundred million birds across Asia, parts of the Middle East, Europe and Africa have died of the virus or been culled.
Experts have long feared the consequences of bird flu taking hold in Africa because of poor health and surveillance systems.
The U.N. AIDS chief said avian flu posed a major threat to Africa’s fight against its AIDS epidemic, challenging overburdened health care systems and stretching economies.
“We are on very thin ice here,” Piot told Reuters in Dar es Salaam, where he was on an inspection mission.
“AIDS has made a mess of Africa’s health care systems, and none of the factors that created the AIDS disaster have gone away. But with bird flu, we could be looking at things getting worse in a matter of months, not decades.”
Bird flu is also threatening livelihoods by slashing demand for poultry in Europe, Nigeria and parts of India.
“I have bought 200 chickens today but I know I will not be able to sell them,” chicken trader Mohammad Taqi said on Sunday at Mumbai’s Ghazipur poultry market, where bird droppings and feathers litter the area and a nauseating stench fills the air.
But one customer was happy.
“I have heard about bird flu on TV but I am not bothered. I want to enjoy the low prices,” said Nanku Ram, a laborer holding a huge bird.
