Nigeria gets $50m to fight avian flu

African Business, April, 2006

The World Bank has stepped in with a cash handout to help Nigeria, the first African country to face an outbreak of avian flu. The Bank warned that all countries in sub-Saharan Africa should now be considered at high risk of infection.

The money has come from the World Bank's new $500m global financing facility for avian flu, some of which has also been earmarked for Niger, in the project's regional approach to avian flu in Africa. In Dakar, Senegal, ministers and health experts from across West Africa met to plan, detect and fight the virus. The conference agreed on the need to establish an information gathering network across the region to monitor poultry testing and plan large-scale vaccination rollouts.