The Federal Government has revealed that there is an increase of avian influenza, commonly referred to as bird-flu (H5N1 virus) in Kano, Plateau and Bauchi.
Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD) Architect Sunny Echono made this statement while announcing deployment of equipment’s to118 Agricultural Equipment Hiring Enterprises (AEHE) across the nation.
He said “We are on top of the situation, I can confirm to you, indeed, in the south, we have stabilized the situation; there are very few, if any new cases are coming-up. But we are not entirely out of the hook, we have some spite in three states, like Kano in particular, that is the eye of the needle for us, we have an unfortunate situation where we have some degree of escalation, but from our projections, it should have actually dipped or dropped. Then we have also in Plateau and Bauchi.
“But we have deployed men and materials and resources to these areas, we have also mobilised support, technical expertise from our partners and we are on top of the situation in those 3 states. We have teams out there now doing containment, quarantine and decontamination and also dis-infecting premises and they are ensuring that cases of transmission are curbed completely.”
In January, the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina had announced the outbreak of the virus.