The spread of avian flu has devastated a once thriving industry, reports Reem Leila "Of course I don't buy chicken. I'm afraid, afraid for myself, my family and especially for my children. Who isn't afraid of disease?" said housewife Amal Mohamed as she shopped at a Cairo market. Her fears are shared by many, and the poultry market has all but collapsed. According to Talib Murad Ali, the Food and Agriculture Organisation's (FAO) regional officer for animal health, countries like Egypt will be particularly hard hit in economic terms by the spread of the avian flu virus and the panic it causes. Egypt's poultry industry has attracted LE17 billion Egyptian pounds in investments, and supports between 2.5 and three million people. Now, though, there is no market for its produce. "Worldwide poultry accounts for about 20 per cent of the animal protein consumed. But in Egypt the figure was 45 to 50 per cent, and poultry was a third of the price of red meat. It is the only protein to which the poor have access," says Ali. Grazing land is scarce in the Middle East and the region is vulnerable to animal diseases because it imports so many live animals, often without strict regulation. "It is common," says Ali, "to hear that every piece of meat on a kebab skewer comes from a different country." Poultry expert Abdel-Ghaffar Youssef says the global buzz around bird flu has led many Arab investors to retreat from the poultry market as Egyptians refrain from eating fowl and prices plummet. Egypt used to export 180 million one-day-old chicks, and 500,000 mature fowl anually. The figures have decreased in recent months by 50 per cent, and the price of chicken on the local market has fallen from LE5.5 to LE3.5, and in some places LE2.5 per kilo, while greater demand for fish and meat has had an inflationary effect, with prices increasing by up to 40 per cent. It is estimated that the poultry industry has already sustained losses of LE1.25 billion, and up to one million employees have been laid off. Poultry exports have collapsed, and 35 per cent of poultry farms have closed down as the industry faces losses of up to LE10 million a day. Of the more than 17,000 farms that served this once thriving market the majority are on the verge of bankruptcy. Small poultry merchants have closed down and many retail outlets now refuse to stock chicken. Last Friday the government advised poultry breeders and retailers to destroy birds within a week to prevent the spread of the virus. "The government has promised compensation, especially for the poor who have to slaughter their chickens but it has not yet made the details public," says Youssef. Anyone who fails to cull their birds will face prosecution and a possible LE10,000 fine. Ahmed Abdel-Azim, a Cairo poultry seller, reports that "nobody is buying chicken any more". "How," he asks, "are we going to work? The government is pressuring us to either close or sell frozen birds. The industry is finished." Ahmed Sayed, who owns a shop in Zamalek in which he sells the produce from his chicken farm, says he has no choice but to close the shop. "I do not think the situation is as serious as it appears to be and I believe the government will not stop short of taking the necessary precautions," he said. Since the first announcement on Friday cases of avian flu have been reported in 11 governorates, stretching from Daqahliya and Beheira on the Mediterranean coast to Qena in the south. "Domestically produced chickens have been culled in Shubra, Rod Al-Farag, Zaytoun, and Sharabiya along with 56,000 birds at three farms north of Cairo. Egypt has tested 37,000 samples since the virus started spreading around the world. The authorities are in the process of slaughtering another 10,000 birds at a farm in the Nile Delta town of Mit Ghamr," revealed Youssef. The H5N1 virus, says Ayman Abdel-Rahman of the Al-Salam International Hospital emergency ward in Maadi, has not yet mutated to pass from human to human, though all influenza viruses have the ability to mutate. "And because these viruses do not commonly infect humans there is little or no immunity to them in the human population." Symptoms of bird flu in humans range from fever, coughs, sore throats and muscle aches to eye infections, pneumonia and acute respiratory complications. According to Abdel-Rahman there is no commercial vaccine to protect humans against the bird flu virus, though there are anti-influenza drugs such as Tamiflu which is manufactured by a Swiss pharmaceutical company. While it does not cure the influenza it can reduce symptoms of the disease if taken immediately after infection.
