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Nigeria: 700,000 birds culled
Around 700,000 birds have been culled in Nigeria since
bird flu was discovered there in February, according to World Health
Organisation (WHO) official Chijioke Osakwe.
Osakwe said it cost Nigeria 560 million naira (US$4.3 million dollars or
€3.4 million) to cull the birds, with the costs primarily associated with
compensation paid to farmers whose birds were killed.
Backyard poultry accounted for 60 percent of the country's 140 million
birds, he said, with the industry contributing nine percent to Nigerias GDP.
Quoting the
World
Bank's prediction of an 800-million-dollar annual loss in the global poultry
sector due to the ravaging
bird
flu disease, Osakwe said efforts must be made by all stakeholders and the
citizens to stem its spread.
Osakwe described bird flu as a virus that did not require a passport to
enter any country, and likened it to the
Spanish flu
which spread across the globe, killing an estimated 20-40 million people between
1918 and 1919.
Editor WorldPoultry
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