According to the Ministry of Agriculture, viruses were detected in two districts near the country’s capital, Porto Novo.
Benin has identified an outbreak of highly contagious H5N1 bird flu in two districts near the capital Porto Novo, according to the Ministry of Agriculture.
On Wednesday, Benin became the last West African country to declare an outbreak of bird flu, after Côte d’Ivoire identified the disease last week near its commercial capital, Abidjan.
This year, cases have also been detected in Ghana, Togo, Niger, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Mauritania and Senegal.
Laboratory tests conducted last week showed that several recent bird deaths in the Seme-Podji and Abomey Calavi districts in southern Benin were associated with positive cases of H5N1, the agriculture ministry said in a statement. a statement.
Benin now expects these results to be confirmed by a laboratory in Italy, according to the statement.
“So far, the situation on the infected farms is under control and measures are being taken to determine the extent of any spread,” he said.
He called on people working in the poultry sector to step up biosecurity measures and inform the ministry of any suspected cases.
H5N1, first detected in 1996 among Chinese geese, has since been detected in more than 50 countries in Africa, Asia and Europe. It can occasionally spread to humans, although no community spread of the virus among humans has been detected.