Sunny Echono, permanent secretary of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, FMARD, has disclosed that there is an escalation of avian influenza, commonly referred to as bird-flu, H5N1 virus in Kano, Plateau and Bauchi states.
He disclosed this in Abuja while announcing the deployment of equipment’s to 118 Agricultural Equipment Hiring Enterprises, AEHE, across the nation.
Echono however noted that government is doing everything to curb further transmission of the virus.
“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 spike 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,” he said.
Echono said government had mobilised technical support to the three states where containment and decontamination exercises are currently ongoing.
“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 three states.
“We have teams out there now doing containment, quarantine and decontamination and also disinfecting premises and they are ensuring that cases of transmission are curbed completely,” Echono added.
Akinwumi Adesina, minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, had in January announced an outbreak of the virus. He disclosed that five states of Ogun, Delta, Rivers, Edo and Plateau had far recorded cases of bird flu in addition to Kano and Lagos states, where the virus was first reported.
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