Togo has discovered outbreaks of highly pathogenic H5N1 bird flu on two poultry farms near its border with Ghana and closed markets in the area to stop it spreading, said Agriculture Minister Yves Mado Nagou.
Togo, which declared its first outbreak of the most deadly strain of avian influenza in June, found new cases in the past fortnight on farms at Adetikope, 20km from the capital Lome, and Aflao, an outlying western suburb of Lome near the Ghana border, Nagou said.
Nagou said poultry on both farms had been culled, the farms placed under quarantine and all poultry markets in the country's southern coastal region - its most heavily populated - ordered to close.
Authorities hoped to re-open markets as soon as this week, he said.
Outbreaks in Africa have raised alarm bells because epidemiologists fear the continent's widespread poverty, lack of proper veterinary and medical facilities and huge informal farming sector could allow outbreaks to go unnoticed longer, increasing the risk of the virus mutating.
Several West African countries have had H5N1 outbreaks since early 2006, including Nigeria, which reported sub-Saharan Africa's first confirmed human death from the disease early this year.
IOL
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