NIGERIA / FILE: People in Lagos - Africa's most populated city - react to the announcement that one of the city's residents has died from H5N1 bird flu

Bird flu outbreaks are usually followed with panic over the consumption of chicken and other poultry, but not in Nigeria, even after samples from a dead woman tested positive for the H5N1 virus. The government said on Wednesday (January 31) that a 22-year-old woman died in Lagos after handling infected chicken - the first human fatality case from the virus in sub-Saharan Africa. Instead people on the streets of Lagos - Africa's most populated city - on Friday (February 2) were questioning the authenticity of a government report confirming the case. "Some times ago we were told that bird flu kills and suddenly they came from nowhere and said they found a solution to it and just now they are saying that bird flu is killing again, so how are we sure it's authentic, how are we sure they have actually gotten the cure as at the last time; so we just need to be careful that's all," said Gift Anakwe, a resident of Lagos. "It can not stop me from eating chicken, because as am talking to you now I have three chickens at home that I will kill and eat," added Samuel Olasoji. "As an individual I have prayed against it and I don't think it will affect the way I eat chicken because I so much love chicken," concluded Henry Oga. The first African deaths from the highly infectious disease were in Egypt where 11 people have died since 2003. There was a single non-fatal human case in Djibouti in the eastern horn of the continent. Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation, was the first on the continent to detect the H5N1 virus in poultry. The virus has spread to 17 of Nigeria's 36 states over the past year despite measures such as culling, quarantine and bans on transporting live poultry. There are worries that more cases may have gone undetected because many families in the country are too poor to have a doctor determine the cause of death.

ITN Source | February 5, 2007

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