IRAQ: Another suspected human case of bird flu, WHO

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

BAGHDAD, 1 Mar 2006 (IRIN) - The World Health Organization (WHO) has said it is concerned about a suspected human case of the deadly H5N1 virus, known as bird flu, in Diyala governorate, some 65 km northeast of the capital.

"This case is very close to the symptoms of the two people killed by bird flu in northern Iraq last month and we need to urgently check this sample also because it’s in an area far from the others reported so far," said Naeema al-Gasser, WHO representative for Iraq.

Meanwhile, samples tested from 50 suspected patients in the northern city of Sulaimaniyah and Missan governorate in the south were confirmed negative, according to al-Gasser. Two fatal human cases of bird flu have been reported so far in Raniyah, a village close to the Turkish border.

Those two deaths, of a 15-year old girl and her uncle, were both due to contact with sick animals carrying the H5N1 virus, and were not transmitted from one person to another.

The WHO official urged the government to compensate farmers for losses incurred due to the mass culling of poultry. Since 15 January, nearly 1.6 million birds have been killed by health officials in Sulaimaniyah and Missan, with farmers expressing increasing discontent.

"Most of the birds killed were from small farms, whose owners depend on them for their daily income," Al-Gasser said. “Urgent decisions should be taken to compensate them to guarantee that they can continue to feed their families.”

The northern Kurdish authorities quickly responded to the call for compensation, recently adding another US $3 million to the $5 million initially allocated last week to reparations and preventive measures in northern areas. Each farmer will receive a financial package based on the value of birds lost.

"We have to spend from our local public funds because we haven’t yet received a response from the central government about the budget, and we can’t stop our programmes in Kurdistan," said Tahseen Nameek, deputy minister of agriculture in the regional government.

However, no such initiative has been announced for farmers in the south. The government in Baghdad responded by saying that the allocation of funds was still under discussion with a decision expected by Sunday. "We’re aware of the emergency situation, but a huge sum of money is required and it isn’t so easy to raise this quickly," said Ahmed Jalal, a senior official in the Ministry of Health.

[ENDS]