Veterinary officials in Ghana on May 22 declared the second outbreak of the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus in the west African country. The latest outbreak was on a farm in Sunyani, a provincial capital 400 kilometres (250 miles) north of Accra. It comes less than a month after Ghana's first case of H5N1 was detected on a farm near Tema, a port city to the east of Accra.
Gary Quarcoo, the head of veterinary services at the agriculture ministry, confirmed that samples from the farm had tested positive for the deadly bird flu virus. He said veterinary officials have culled thousands of birds in Sunyani and had also destroyed animal feed and farm equipment.
Ghana is the eighth African country to report a case of the H5N1 bird flu virus in poultry.
Avian influenza has killed 185 people since late 2003, most of them in Southeast Asia, according to World Health Organisation figures. In its present form, H5N1 is lethal for birds and people in close proximity to infected fowl, but experts fear that it could one day mutate to easily spread from human to human and trigger a deadly pandemic.
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