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Nigeria bans backyard poultry in Abuja

ABUJA, NIGERIA Feb 15 2006 18:00

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Nigeria banned domestic poultry in its political capital, Abuja, on Wednesday as it redoubled efforts to contain Africa's first outbreak of a deadly strain of bird flu.

"The minister of the Federal Capital Territory has invoked a provision in the statute of the Federal Capital Territory which makes it illegal for people to keep stocks of poultry in their homes or backyards," Information Minister Frank Nweke told journalists after a weekly Cabinet meeting.

He said authorities were "going around to pick up the birds and poultry that are being kept in residential homes".

On Monday, Health Minister Eyitayo Lambo said there were suspected cases of bird flu in Abuja, but there have been no confirmed cases in the region so far.

The outbreak has so far been confined to the sprawling country's north, with one of the epicentres about 300km from Abuja, and officials are struggling to prevent it from spilling over to the densely populated south.

Last week, United Nations scientists revealed that a month-old outbreak of sickness among chickens at a commercial battery farm in the north of Nigeria was Africa's first confirmed case of the deadly H5N1 virus.

Since then, clean-up teams have visited more than a dozen farms to kill, burn and bury tens of thousands of birds thought to be infected with the disease. International experts have arrived to help contain its spread. -- Sapa-AFP