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RWANDA: GOVERNMENT ALERT ON BIRD FLU February 20, 2006

Apunyu Bonny

(SomaliNet) Rwandan government has mounted preventive measures to save the lives of both people and poultry from the deadly H5N1 Strain (bird flu) which continues to run riot around Europe and the Western and Northern African countries of Nigeria and Egypt.

Theogene Rutagwenda, the director of the National Animal Development Centre at Rubilizi Dr. said the government instituted a total ban on the importation of poultry products since last year.

“On top of that,” Dr. Rutagwenda told The New Times Sunday 19, “the government has instituted a taskforce comprising the stakeholder ministries of agriculture, commerce and that of health to carry out a public campaign against Bird flu, and to keep a watchful eye on the issue in a bid to stem the outbreak of the infection in the country.”

Rutagwenda said that ever since the October 2005 African Union Agriculture Ministers’ Conference, there has been an on going Bird flu information sharing programme among the member states, coordinated by the AU-Nairobi Bureau.

“There are three laboratories that can help in detecting this virus; they were identified in South Africa, Mauritius,Kenya,” Dr. Rutagwenda disclosed, adding that the three have been tasked to carry out tests on the virus.

Dr. Rutagwenda further disclosed that a ‘grand budget’ to cater for preventive actions including purchase of disinfectants like Tamiflu has been proposed and presented by the taskforce members to the Ministry of Health for action. However, when asked whether the government had already imported the effective Tamiflu drugs, the assistant research director at the Centre for the Training and Treatment of HIV/Aids and other epidemics (TRAC+) Dr.Vianney Nizeyimana denied any importation of the drug had been effected.

“So far nothing like Tamiflu has been stocked but we are closely following the situation; so, as soon as the deadly virus reaches this region we can hastily order for any disinfectants through the World Health Organization (WHO), Kigali Bureau,” Dr. Nizeyimana said on phone Sunday.

On the budget, Dr Nizeyimana, who is also in charge of Epidemiological Survey said: “The Ministry of Health has a standby amount of around one billion francs that can be used just in case the pandemic occurs.”

Meanwhile, media reports indicate that the lethal H5N1 virus that has reportedly led to a big number of poultry deaths in Nigeria and Egypt first broke on the Asian continent in 2003. Also, according to the World Health Organization, the virus has so far claimed ninety one human lives. Over the weekend India, France and Iran became the latest.