Egyptian Chronicles: The H5N1 started the evolution process in Egypt !!

This is not according to me but according to the a very alerting news report published in the Daily Dostor on Wednesday the 2nd of January 2008 in Egypt . "I know the title is shocking but I am following the old school of Mustafa Amin in the headlines"

If the government and citizens both do not understand the dangers of the virus and the dangers of raising domestic poultry ,the virus will evolve sooner to enter the phase of spread between humans directly , the phase that means epidemic , the phase that means thousands or even millions of Egyptians can die ,the phase that means a whole catastrophe for both the world and Egypt

Professor and doctor Ahmed El-Sanousy ,the head of the viruses section at the faculty of Veterinary , Cairo University told the newspaper that in the last three months in 2007 the virus began to evolve and form a resistance against the vacancies like Tamflu , and this what the Namru discovered lately ,it did not reach the complete evolution process which moves it from the birds to humans phase to the humans to humans phase yet thank God .

The good news is that Egypt is working on a vaccine for the birds to fight back the virus and its evolved strains ,already the initial experiences showed success ,the imported bird vaccines made no success at all and so there is need for an effective local alternative and thank God we own the expertise but they only need support and facilities

Dr. El-Sanousy explained more and more about the nature of the virus and why it spread like this in Egypt and here is a quick summary for what he had said :

One of the most important reasons why the Virus is staying in Egypt is the Domestic poultry especially that 40% of the the domestic poultry in Egypt were not vaccined as a result of the small number of vaccines in Egypt and the fact that most of those who raise domestic poultry in their homes do not have enough knowledge to know that the chicken and ducks need to be vaccined
Already the estimated number of the domestic poultry in Egypt is 200 Million bird , not all of them are chicken ,there are other kinds of poultry like Ducks and geese. The Symptoms of the Bird Flu can be discovered easily and quickly in the chicken which are from the Phasianidae family where as the Ducks and geese are from the Anatidae family , the ducks and geese do not show any symptoms of the virus at all on the contrary they can breed when they got the virus . The Ducks and geese are from the important factors why the virus spread in the delta
The Upper Egypt Governates did not see outbreak for the virus like the Delta now because the the weather is there much hotter " I do not know about this point but what I know from the Geography , yes Upper Egypt is warm in the winter in morning but it is very cold at night due to the fact it is higher the delta "
The cleanliness ,the cleanliness is very important whether for the birds or for humans

This is What Dr.Sanousy said to the best selling daily independent newspaper in Egypt and if we combine the reasons he said with factors we are already know we will find ourselves in front of the final reasons why the virus has spread like this in Egypt

1- It is the reasonability of both the government and the people ,The Carelessness of the Ministry of Agriculture and the people who neglected the government's warnings about raising domestic poultry

2-The Domestic poultry and the fact that most of it got no vaccine

3-The spread of birds like Ducks and Geese

4- The cleanliness

5-The knowledge of the people ,they must know the dangers very well

6- The fear of the farmers and raisers on their wealth especially after the bad imported Vaccines that killed whole farms in Egypt made the farms scared from vaccination altogether

7-There should be no profiting from this situation like what happened when the virus arrived in Egypt

As you see these are the human reasons or more like the human errors except may be the part concerning Ducks and Geese . We can solve each problem ,of course it will be much easier if we start with the Government , the ministries involve should declare the emergency status not only the health ministry but the ministries of Agriculture ,locals , environment ,information and transportation

There should be a huge media campaign using creditable sources from celebrities and newspapers "not official" to warn the people especially in Delta from the dangers of the virus and the hazards of having Domestic poultry with no vaccination not to mention the cleanliness issue must be tickled in the campaign , I will go too far and say that they can use the MB members in the parliament in the Delta "and they are many" to warn the people in their committees

The government must impose fines on the farmers and raisers who do not report the H5N1 Cases in their farms, of course the government will love this suggestion taking money from the farmers and the raisers but of course it will not like the coming suggestion which is lowering the price of other food alternatives , why do people in the first place raise domestic poultry ?? For two reasons to save money by raising their own food and to raise money by selling the eggs and sometimes the chicken and the eggs

It will not harm the government if it lowers the prices of food at least in Delta for now and make sure there are stocks from other alternatives like beef meat and fish in the markets . There should be no profiting from this situation as I said earlier ,you see the Beef meat and fish prices went up with no consideration what so ever to the people ,I know these are the dynamics of the market still we are not rich country and the government should put limits.

Of course the government sorry the Regime itself must stop its men from the NDP from using the crisis to their sake , and here I mean the importers of white chicken in Egypt

The government must have a plan in case if this virus evolves to the human to human phase to an epidemic because they can't depend on wishes and prays this time , if the black scenario happens ,it will be the last straw not for the government but for the whole regime .

By the way here is useful link about the situation in Egypt , it turned out there is suspected H5N1 infections in Port Said , a whole family was detained in the hospital there , still we must take in consideration that family if really was infected , it can be infected from the poultry directly, it is common in country side that birds are moving around the house with the rest of the family members till night where they gathered to be put in cages so it can't be considered a dangerous situation