Bird flu a long-term threat to Africa

By Andrew Walker
Economics Correspondent, BBC World Service

Many of Africa's poorest areas depend on agriculture

Avian flu is still a disease that affects mainly birds.

The dominant form of transmission is very much from bird to bird.

That means that the big economic impact of the disease in its current form is in the poultry business.

So the confirmation that it has arrived in Africa and been found in chickens in Nigeria and Niger was very bad news indeed.

Much of Africa's deepest poverty is in rural areas. Bird flu has the potential to devastate the livelihoods of many millions on small farms that produce poultry, along with the few larger scale poultry operations that continent has.

The low incomes mean the impact is likely to be that much more severe. Agriculture and food production account for a larger share of the economy in Africa than in richer areas, so losses to poultry farmers will have a bigger impact.

Early action key

World Bank officials have known for some time that this unwelcome arrival in Africa was likely to happen.

They do not have any very detailed estimates of the likely impact, but the experience of Asia, where the disease originated, is not encouraging.

Francois Le Gall, a livestock expert at the World Bank, says that the losses to the poultry sector alone in Asia have been billions of dollars.

Two hundred million birds have either died from the disease or been destroyed in an effort to contain its spread.

Poultry in infected areas are being suffocated, burned and buried

In Africa, he says, Nigeria and South Africa both have more than 100 million poultry each. Another 20 countries have between 10 and 50 million.

And apart from the loss of incomes that bird flu brings, there is also a cost for governments - and aid donors - in trying to tackle it.

Mr Le Gall says the key to containing the economic cost of bird flu is rapid effective action.

An early response to a few small outbreaks could cost perhaps $5m (£2.8m), he says. If that does not happen, a wider campaign could cost 10 times as much.

Further delay could lead to the disease becoming endemic, he warns, and another 10-fold increase in the cost.

Veterinary challenge

The main burden, while the disease is mainly spread from bird to bird, would be on the veterinary services of the countries concerned. Mr Le Gall worries about whether they are up to the challenge.

It is hard to avoid the conclusion that bird flu could easily become endemic in some African countries.

There is a risk of the disease changing in a way that makes human transmission easier.

But even if it does not, and remains mainly a disease of birds, it seems likely to impose an additional economic burden on Africa's poor that they can ill afford to bear.