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AFRICAN SWINE FEVER - NIGERIA: (DELTA)
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A ProMED-mail post
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International Society for Infectious Diseases
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Date: Wed 10 Jun 2009
Source: Next [edited]
<http://www.234next.com/csp/cms/sites/Next/News/National/5423324-147/African_Swine_Fever_discovered_in_Nigeria.csp>
The Federal Ministry of Health has confirmed the report that African
swine flu has been discovered in a certain part of Delta state.
The Ministry, in a report by the special assistant on communication
to the minister of health, Niyi Ojuolape, said the presence of the
disease has been confirmed after consultation with the Delta State
Ministries of Health and Agriculture.
The ministry, however, said that African swine fever (ASF) affects
only pigs and that it does not affect humans in any way. It said also
that it is not in any way related to the H1N1 influenza strain,
otherwise known as swine fever [sic; the commonly applied popular
name has been "swine flu" or "swine influenza." - Mod.AS], which has
been ravaging the health world.
Mr. Ojuolape, however, assured the public that swine flu has not been
reported in Nigeria and that the government is doing a lot to monitor
the events with a view to handling any eventuality effectively.
Also, the Delta State Ministry of Agriculture has quarantined the
affected piggery and has started culling the affected pigs to prevent
the disease from spreading to other pigs.
African swine fever (ASF) is, however, a highly contagious,
generalized disease of pigs caused by an iridovirus that exhibits
varying virulence between strains, although different serotypes
cannot be identified.
Experts say that the virus resists inactivation and can persist in
meat up to 15 weeks, processed ham up to 6 months and up to one month
in contaminated pens. It is endemic in most of southern Africa.
Treatment and vaccine have not been discovered to date. The United
States Department of Agriculture (USDA) prohibits the importation of
live hogs and uncooked pork from any country where ASF exists except
if the products are commercially canned, hermetically sealed, and
fully sterilized so they remain shelf stable without refrigeration,
and the processes used have been proven to inactivate the virus.
[Byline: Ifedayo Adebayo]
--
Communicated by:
ProMED-mail <promed@promedmail.org>
[As rightly indicated in the above article, ASF is endemic in
southern Africa; the disease is also present in several other world
regions, in particular the Caucasus (since 2007). An interactive
world map showing the distribution of ASF since 2007 is available at
<http://www.oie.int/wahis/public.php?species%5B%5D=10&species%5B%5D=17&page=disease_outbreak_map&date_submit=OK>.
During 2008, (Federal) Nigeria reported 12 outbreaks of ASF; they
occurred in the following 5 states: Adamawa, Cross River, Lagos,
Plateau and Gombe (map at
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nigeria_political.png>).
In the background of several recent press reports on ASF in Nigeria,
some of them (but, commendably, not the above one) erroneously named
ASF "a zoonosis" in the public awareness (or rather fear) of the
pandemic novel A (H1N1) influenza virus. In fact, this posting is
meant to address this publicized inaccuracy and make clear that the
viral disease ASF is restricted to porcines, is not a zoonosis, and
has nothing in common with the zoonotic influenza virus.
We are grateful to Dr Shamsudeen Fagbo who has kindly drawn our
attention to 2 of the zoonotic diseases which do circulate in Nigeria
and deserve to be tackled, the sooner the better; these are bovine
tuberculosis and brucellosis, both apparently widespread but
underreported. - Mod.AS]
[see also:
2007
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African swine fever - Nigeria: susp., RFI 20071122.3787
2005
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African swine fever - Nigeria (02): OIE 20050815.2387
African swine fever - Nigeria: OIE 20050808.2316
2004
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African swine fever - Burkina Faso 20041129.3187
2001
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African swine fever - Nigeria 20011116.2822
African swine fever - Nigeria (Ibadan) 20011028.2662
African swine fever - South Africa 20010810.1893
1999
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African swine fever - Ghana (Accra) 19991025.1931
1998
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African swine fever - Nigeria (02) 19980916.1866
African swine fever - Nigeria 19980709.1282]
...................................................arn/msp/dk
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