By Cynthia Johnston CAIRO, March 13 (Reuters) - Egypt has detected bird flu in chickens and ducks from reportedly vaccinated flocks in a sign that inoculation procedures in the most populous Arab country may be lacking, an animal health official said on Tuesday. The official, who closely follows bird flu in Egypt, said chickens and ducks from vaccinated household flocks and on poultry farms had tested positive for the H5N1 bird flu virus this year in 12 locations, and eight of the infections were detected this month. "We have outbreaks in vaccinated chickens in many places," the official told Reuters, asking not to be named because he was not authorised to speak to the press. "This puts a question mark on vaccination procedures ... It is dangerous." He said all but one of the vaccinated flocks where infections occurred were in the hard-hit Nile Delta, where most of the country's 24 human cases have been concentrated. The country has the largest number of human cases outside of Asia. Since the virus first surfaced in Egyptian poultry a year ago, 13 Egyptians have died of the disease, and all but two human infections have been attributed to contact with sick or dead household birds. Egyptian authorities have said they had virtually eliminated the disease from poultry farms and hatcheries, where birds are routinely vaccinated. An agriculture ministry avian specialist, Saber Abdel Aziz Galal, confirmed that bird flu had been detected in two Nile Delta flocks that were reportedly vaccinated, but said they had occurred in January. He was unaware of other cases. Ahmed Chikhaoui, the Food and Agriculture Organisation representative in Cairo, said he was unaware of detected cases in vaccinated flocks. VACCINATION PROCEDURES Officials said that the problem was likely due to improper vaccination procedures, and it was possible that the farms where infections occurred had not followed health ministry guidelines. "The immunisations did not occur under veterinary supervision," the health ministry's Galal said, adding that farms may have also brought in flocks without first consulting proper authorities. "Last year there were around 890 farms affected. This year it's two. So naturally there's a big difference," he said. "The whole problem now is with household poultry." The animal health official said some farms may be vaccinating chicks at over five days old, which could reduce the efficacy of the vaccine. He said inoculations should be done when the chicks are a day old. Health experts fear the H5N1 virus could mutate into a form that passes easily from human to human, sparking a pandemic that could kill millions. The virus has killed 168 people worldwide since 2003, mostly in Asia.
