In Focus:

Flu and mismanagement

Failure to identify the incoming sources of avian flu raises questions over the government's competence to ensure public health, writes Galal Nassar

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It seems that whenever crisis strikes government mismanagement ensures that it exacts the greatest toll possible. The most recent instance is the government's response to avian flu, which has killed our poultry industry and jeopardises the lives of many Egyptians. According to one as yet unpublished study, the avian flu virus is now endemic in Egypt and will remain so for years because of the bungling of health authorities at every step of the way.

Unfortunately, few have picked up on an important statement by Adli Hussein, governor of Qalyubiya -- the governorate most affected by avian flu in terms of its human and poultry populations. Although he stressed that we had no idea how this dreadful virus entered the country, he expressed his scepticism towards the most commonly cited presumed cause; it was unlikely that the disease was introduced by migratory birds, he said, because the Ministry of Environment has not reported a single case of avian flu in a migratory bird.

We are therefore confronted with two possibilities. Either the Ministry of Environment failed to detect the presence of the disease among migratory birds entering our country -- as a result of which the virus attacked us in Cairo and other governorates causing inestimable losses and began to spread epidemically -- or the virus infiltrated the country through another route, such as (according to one conjecture) the importation of infected poultry.

Neither possibility is very attractive. The first implies gross negligence on the part of the Ministry of Environment's monitoring agencies charged with sounding the alert against infection by a virus that we knew well in advance would devastate one of our country's most important food industries. The second implies, on top of gross negligence, gross corruption motivated by a greed so voracious that it had no compunction at letting the interest of immediate gain override the dangers to which it was exposing society. For this reason, I believe that we must wholeheartedly support Adli Hussein's call for an investigation into how avian flu entered the country.

Some might argue that such an investigation is a luxury now that the epidemic has struck and already claimed human victims in Egypt, and that we should focus instead our attention on combating the epidemic so that it doesn't claim more victims and wreak further damage on our poultry industry. On the surface, this argument is logical and sensible. However, if we ignore the negligence and/ or corruption that allowed the virus into the country into the first place, what assurance do we have that the same negligence and/or corruption will not infect current efforts to combat the virus?

Indeed, this may well have already occurred. As soon as the first case of avian flu was discovered, a state of emergency was declared and a series of stringent measures taken. The transport of poultry from one governorate to another was prohibited, thousands of stocks of poultry were erased, domestic chicken coops were destroyed, and chicken and turkey were banned from market shelves. After about a week, incidents of infection among poultry dwindled. Sadly, so too did our vigilance. Then, after resuming our happy-go-lucky ways as though avian flu had never entered the country the virus struck its first human victim. This, moreover, we only learned by accident, in spite of all the precautions that were supposed to have been taken to forestall the transmission of the virus to human beings. We had gone to inordinate lengths to justify draconian measures in the poultry industry. Then, as soon as these measures yielded their first positive results we grew slack again, effectively voiding the effects of the measures and, perhaps, facilitating the spread of the virus to human beings.

Certainly an investigation into how the virus entered Egypt is part and parcel of the fight against it. Migratory birds may have already begun to head to Europe, but they are destined to return in the autumn. If they are indeed the original source of infection, and if the Ministry of Environment was indeed guilty of negligence, certainly all possible measures should be taken now to identify the sources of negligence in that ministry and to better equip and train its personnel to monitor this year's incoming flocks so as to prevent a repetition of the cycle. If, on the other hand, migratory birds are not the source of infection then we have to identify the forms of corruption and negligence that paved the way for the virus's entry into Egypt. Obviously, to ignore these causes is only to expose ourselves to greater risk.

An investigation into how avian flu found its way into Egypt is not a luxury, a waste of time, or a diversion from the vital task of combating it.

The Egyptian government, like the Turkish authorities, has laid the blame for the spread of avian flu on the poor and limited income sectors of the public who raise chickens and other birds in their homes. However, even if there is some justification to this stance, it does not absolve the government of its own responsibility. Government officials declared repeatedly that they had taken every precaution early on to prevent the entrance of the virus into the country. Then, when infection reared its head, they were unable to identify where it came from.

Given the negligence and, perhaps, corruption, that most probably facilitated the infiltration of the disease into Egypt it hardly seems fair that the government should now attempt to wash its own hands of the matter and point the finger at people whose economic circumstances compel them to secure inexpensive sources of animal protein. Nor is it right that we should hear conflicting statements by officials on the committee for fighting avian flu with regard to how long we might expect to suffer from this plight. The fact alone that estimates have varied from a few months to several years does not give us great assurance of the ability of the government to handle this crisis.

Government incompetence in this and other issues is only working to erode public support. If it wants to shoot itself in its own foot that is its own business. It does not, however, have the right to jeopardise the lives and welfare of the Egyptian people.