Village Ways Fuel Bird Flu Spread In Rural Egypt

According to this article, the cultural practice of keeping birds at home is contributing to the spread of avian influenza in Egypt. The country has the largest number of confirmed human cases of avian flu outside of Asia, where most people have contracted the virus after coming into contact with household poultry.

In an effort to halt the spread of the disease, the Egyptian government has banned city dwellers from keeping poultry at home, but villagers have largely ignored government warnings to keep birds out of the house, as many families depend on poultry as a main source of food and income. The government has also offered to vaccinate household poultry for free, but vaccination teams face resistance from villagers who hide their birds because they are distrustful of the government and believe that the vaccinations may be harmful to their birds.

According to a representative from the World Health Organization (WHO), the problem of villagers' hiding of birds or denying that they have dead birds misleads physicians and leads to delays in diagnosing the disease.