The Egyptians throw chickens and ducks into the water to stop the flu

When Attia Abdel-Hamid Hassan saw that domestic chickens and ducks in the Egyptian Nile sub-region began to show signs of trembling, standing unsteadily, he stuffed them into a sack and tossed it into the irrigation canal.

His neighbors, fearing the spread of bird flu so far have killed 13 Egyptians, doing the same thing. All people in the village of Ezbet Sidi Omar, 40 km north of Cairo, are trying to protect themselves from the deadly H5N1 virus in Egypt - the country with the highest number of people with the flu gender - outside Asia.

Health officials say the traditional habit of keeping poultry in the home has contributed to an increase in influenza in the most populous country of Saudi Arabia, which has had 24 people since the outbreak of influenza in one. farm a year ago. "A week ago, I had 10 sick chickens and I threw them in the water," Hassan, a 36-year-old driver, threw about 200 chickens and 100 ducks into the country since bird flu appeared in Egypt. , to speak.

He suspects his poultry is infected with a virus. But like neighbors, he didn't know for sure because they were not tested.

Egypt has asked the people of the city not to raise poultry in the house, but that habit still prevails in rural areas, where about 5 million families depend on income from poultry.

Like many rural Egyptians, the village of Ezbet Sidi Omar ignored the recommendation of not raising poultry in the home, wearing masks, gloves when contacting poultry or informing the authorities when poultry was present. sick or dead.

Egypt used to control the pandemic strictly on poultry farms, where poultry were vaccinated against diseases. In an Egyptian incubator, which supplies about 400,000 chickens a day, workers are often disinfected before entering the factory, they all wear clothes, protective helmets, boots, and hand washing. Each time you go to an incubator or take care of breeding chickens. Since the outbreak of influenza in Egypt, workers began to vaccinate by hand with one-day-old chickens, born from disinfected eggs of vaccinated poultry. The plant management said that the vaccination can automatically leave the chicken duck.

"We have increased our caution even though there has been a previous preventive system ," said factory manager Wadi Hatcheries. "Previously we were worried about the flu here. Now, we worry about what's going on outside ''.

Egypt cannot enforce mandatory measures to prevent similar bird flu in rural farms and hatcheries. At the same time, trafficking chickens and chickens have not yet been exchanged.

The Egyptian Parliament is working on a regulation of transporting live poultry among provinces as well as regulations on poultry slaughtering.

According to Saber Abdel Aziz Galal, a poultry researcher from the Egyptian Ministry of Agriculture, the country has provided free vaccines to poultry farmers, workers coming to each house have been vaccinated at 45 million. among 100-200 million poultry households. However, the teams of vaccination staff encountered the obstruction of the people when they hid the birds because they feared that chickens and ducks were taken to destruction.

In some poor households, some people still deny raising poultry in the house even the members have people who are sick. "They refused to report on infected poultry. They did not say when mass deaths were occurring," said John Jabbour of the World Health Organization.

According to the villagers of Ezbet Sidi Omar, poultry were concentrated to destroy last year when four people in the same province were exposed to poultry, two people died. However, chickens and ducks are secretly "returning" to livestock households. Some people say they also want to "liberate" their poultry, but life with a bear and shoulder is always there and it is indispensable for eggs and poultry to ensure daily protein needs. "Of course, we are also afraid of bird flu. But we are farmers, and life is too expensive ," Hassan said.

United Mail