Bird flu claims first human life in West Africa

This can't be good...I was not aware this disease had made it to Africa...not the best environment for containing the spread of an infectious disease...

LAGOS (Reuters) - Nigeria confirmed the first human death from the H5N1 virus in sub-Saharan Africa on Wednesday after tests on a dead woman showed she had contracted bird flu.

The 22-year-old died after feathering and disemboweling an infected chicken. She was from Lagos, the commercial capital of Africa's most populous country, Information Minister Frank Nweke said.
Test on three other victims, one of them the woman's mother, were inconclusive.

Nigeria was the first African nation to detect the H5N1 virus in poultry last year and had conducted tests on 14 people suspected of having the virus.

Although bird flu remains essentially an animal disease, experts fear it could mutate into a form that could pass easily among humans, possibly killing millions

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