In normal times, dealing with the snarl of traffic in the nation’s capital is a breeze compared to navigating the hustle and bustle of Omm Hanyya’s rooftop in the Cairo neighborhood of Al-Warraq. Here, multiethnic armies of birds squawk and quack at one another as they fight for space: free-range chickens, geese, ducks —even a handful of rabbits —usually have busy social lives here. The only one who seems to have exiled himself from the members of Omm Hanyya’s exclusive club is a self-conscious rooster with a messed-up biological clock who crows madly at all hours of the day as he gives visitors a free freak show.

Bird feed, green leaves and water pots litter the ground; a trail of bird waste makes the place a high-maintenance locale. This bird kingdom is presided over by a female giant whose smile is literally seasonal, reserved for just two occasions: The days when she buys her feathered sweethearts in Al-Fayyoum, and the days she sells them off.

In between, she is a human robot who sticks to a strict daily schedule of feeding and bathing her charges. On a visit late last month, though, she bore only a scowl on her face as she contemplated the ruins of her domain, saying she had been forced to slaughter most of her birds at her neighbors’ urging before the authorities arrived for a snap inspection.

On Friday, February 17, Egypt recorded its first confirmed cases of the H5N1 strain of avian flu. The disease was the last thing the 67-year-old imagined would put an end to her long-time business: Omm Hanyya had always believed that only a shortage of money or her aching back might force her into retirement.

“So what if birds die from the flu?” she complains. “They die from other things, too. El-ferra has always claimed the lives of some of our birds, and there’s the bird cholera, as well. We didn’t die from them, so why would the flu kill us? Just say bismallah upon slaughtering and before eating.”

But the flocks tended to by Omm Hanyya and other small-scale poultry and fowl farmers have always been the most vulnerable to avian flu. Dr. Maher Abdel Gayyed, a top veterinarian and owner of a poultry farm in Al-Saff, has been bracing for its arrival.

Mohsen Allam Taking no chances: More than 100,000 birds have been slaughtered in Egypt’s efforts to contain the virus.

“Egyptians are used to buying live birds and slaughtering them at home. They see it as cleaner, safer and easier to make sure the birds are well fed. Many a housewife would buy a mix of chickens, ducks and geese to raise them properly in the comfort of her own home or rooftop until they become fat enough to kiss goodbye. I remember my grandmother had a miniature farm on her roof. As children, we were excited to go up and run after the rabbits or watch her mouth-feeding her chickens. But these were the good old days. Now, the fear, all the fear, comes from haphazard domestic raising of chicken in homes, on rooftops and in esha [nests], all of which raise the odds of infection since they’re freely exposed to the virus.”

By contrast, Abdel Gayyed says, “There’s no immediate threat to protected and contained chicken farms.” Public health officials agree, saying that at major poultry breeders such as Wadi Foods and Cairo Poultry Co., the birds are raised in highly controlled environments (keeping them separate from passing wild and migratory birds carrying H5N1 westward from Asia) that are subject to rigid health inspections.

The facts at press time support the veterinarian’s assertion: 90 percent of all avian flu cases so far reported in Egypt have been in flocks of home-raised birds. According to Minister of Health and Population Hatem El-Gabali, poultry farms account for less than 10 percent of all cases reported from 83 locations. Infected wild birds account for the balance.

At press time, no human cases had been reported; more than two dozen Egyptians with flu-like symptoms had been screened and declared safe. The Ministry of Health and Population has so far stocked some 80,000 courses of Tamiflu, the only drug known to attenuate the effects of avian flu and increase the odds of humans surviving an infection. Tamiflu remains in short supply around the world as only one pharmaceutical company, Roche Laboratories Inc., presently produces the drug. Each batch takes approximately six months to make once the rare starting material, derived from a Chinese spice called star anise, is in place.

A nationwide cull of birds continued apace as et went to press, enforced by teams of officials from the ministries of health, agriculture and environment backed up by police. At press time, more than 120,000 birds had been slaughtered.

Mohsen Allam The Ministry of State for Environmental Affairs has designated 250 regional burial sites to safely dispose of infected birds.

For Omm Hanyya, a small player in a big business, the lack of human cases only supports her pet theory that bird flu doesn’t kill chicken lovers. “Who knows what would have happened if it did? Now, they’re killing the birds, healthy or sick, to be safe. Maybe they’ll send us to the gallows if someone dies from bronchitis later on,” she grouses.

“Today, if you sneeze, nobody tells you ‘God bless.’ They report you first,” she says with a bitter smile.

Omm Hanyya is a sitting duck for the financial repercussions of the outbreak, and she’s hardly alone. Last month, more than 3,000 field hands took to Cairo’s streets to protest the blow to their businesses; their counterparts in the nation’s far-flung governorates launched similar local protests.

The difference is that unlike its predecessors, the Nazif government isn’t turning a blind eye to a brewing economic crisis. The LE 17 billion poultry industry employs an estimated 2 million citizens (directly and indirectly) and produces the average citizen’s primary source of animal protein. Fears of avian flu sapped sales and saw the price of chicken plunge by up to 25 percent last fall, causing the industry to rack up some LE 1.6 billion in losses since September, before the first case was even confirmed. The Egyptian Federation of Poultry Producers now expects losses to jump to LE 5 billion by mid-March. Consumers are simply not buying chicken, eggs or any other form of bird, and photographs in state-run dailies of ministers and members of the People’s Assembly munching on roasted chicken have done nothing to whet Egyptians’ appetites.

“Would you believe that some of my life-long customers, like Mme Enayat, who used to welcome me in her home and offer tea and sweets, have already boycotted me personally?” Omm Hanyya complains. “She doesn’t want me to come near her house for fear I’m carrying the virus! It can’t get any worse!”

A worker from the Cairo Cleaning and Beautification Authority (CCBA) prepares to bury suspect chickens at a CCBA site near Nasr City.

For once, the government was prepared and launched a campaign whose guiding motto is “tell the truth and nothing but the truth” the day the first case turned up. So far, it has been a tramnsparent exercise that has seen the state trying to build new bridges of trust with citizens who have been conditioned by past events to expect official deception at every turn in national crises.

It all started when Health Minister El-Gabali, already praised for his activist approach to his new portfolio, woke Dr. Zuheir El-Halaj, the World Health Organization’s representative in Egypt, at 3 am on February 17 to inform him that the first case had been discovered. A government statement to the public followed within hours, making Egypt the first country with avian flu to make the announcement before the WHO.

Later that morning, Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif was on national and international television announcing that his Cabinet had formulated a comprehensive national plan of action last fall when speculation first surfaced that migratory birds passing through Egypt in winter might carry the deadly H5N1 virus inside the nation’s borders. The state’s well-organized media campaign includes public-service announcements informing citizens how to recognize the symptoms of the disease and how to deal with a dead or sick bird, offering toll-free emergency numbers and assuring citizens that eating chicken is safe — as long as it’s well-cooked and handled.

“Avian flu is like the plague for chickens,” says Abdel Gayyed. “Once infected, a chicken herd will start to die off in 22-72 hours. Chickens are the weakest and most vulnerable birds and the symptoms are easy to detect. Geese and ducks are more robust, but they can be carriers even if their symptoms are not obvious.

Within hours of the first case of bird flu being detected, the government launched a massive campaign to educate Egyptians on how to recognize and handle infected birds.

“Despite that,” he says, “people shouldn’t panic. An infected chicken dies within hours. It generally doesn’t lay eggs, and if it does, the egg is clearly contaminated because it is blooded. We can safely eat chicken by handling it right, particularly by boiling it. The virus is killed at just 70 degrees Celsius, as we all know by now. Cleaning your hands before and after handling poultry is essential and kills the virus.”

He says the last thing people should do is boycott chicken, though he concedes fear is a natural response.

“Boycotting chicken would be a severe blow to our national economy, whereas if people think and act wisely, they would help protect a huge industry. We’ve been suffering since the rumors first started, and now after reality hit, consumption is being seriously affected. We’re dead meat — many of us will be forced to shut down our farms. The price of fish and meat is skyrocketing because of new demand,” he says.

WHO officials claim that less than 200 people around the world have been infected with bird flu. “Pollution will kill more people than bird flu,” Abdel Gayyed notes.

Maged George, the Minister of State for the Environmental Affairs, might take umbrage at the analogy, but the rest of his Cabinet colleagues probably couldn’t agree more. In a bid to allay public fears, Minister of Agriculture and Land Reclamation Amin Abaza ordered the Giza Zoo and other wildlife attractions closed for a 15-day period after more than 80 birds including Roman Chickens, Chinese Geese and several types of ducks died. El-Gabali issued a similar decree banning the transfer of live poultry between governorates for 15 days without a permit from a government veterinary medicine unit.

Nasser Nasser A poultry seller sits next to his empty cages at a Downtown Cairo market.

Other decrees require poultry shops to have their birds slaughtered at official government slaughterhouses, where health inspectors will take random samples to test for the virus. In the weeks ahead, most shops will be turned into distribution points as they will be allowed to sell only frozen bird meat with government inspection seals. The state-run Social Fund for Development has already earmarked LE 5 million to help shop-owners buy freezers; those caught selling live or unfrozen fowl will be subject to fines of at least LE 10,000.

Meanwhile, the Bank for Agricultural Credit and Development and other state-run financial institutions have announced they will reschedule the debts of poultry producers, freeze the accumulation of interest on loans and suspend fines for late or nonpayment.

The ministers of health, agriculture, environment and information have become close friends in the weeks since the outbreak, coordinating their statements and press releases. Minister of Information Anas El-Fiqqi told reporters last month that by putting all the facts before the nation, the government is relying on transparency and credibility to save the day. El-Fiqqi called on Egyptians to “ignore the rumors that thrive in such critical times” and condemned a number of Arab satellite broadcasters that falsely reported human infections in Egypt. The ministry’s information center received tips of at least 187 false rumors on the first day of the outbreak alone.

Later, government agencies were forced into full-on crisis mode when rumors spread through the nation in a matter of hours that dead birds were being thrown into the Nile. SMS and e-mail forwards declaring that citizens should avoid drinking and bathing in even boiled tap-water for at least eight hours saw a run on bottled water in the nation’s capital.

Many citizens still haven’t bought into the government’s line. As butcher Mohamed Abdullah El-Farrargy teases, the best rumor he has heard to date is the one that claims the government will fairly compensate retailers for their losses and buy up the nationwide stock of 38 million chickens from farmers.

“Nonsense! They talk the talk, but will never walk the walk,” he growls. “You would be naïve to believe it. They come seize the chicken and we never see them again. What fridges are they talking about it? Maybe to sell ice-cream! I know I’m going to lose money and I know that nobody will help me in this plight, not the government, not friends, not even family.

“I have friends in Al-Behaira who’re banging their heads against the wall. They don’t have an official slaughterhouse there, so they want to go slaughter their birds in another governorate that has one, yet they’re prohibited by the minister’s [ban on] transporting live birds. Their chicken is healthy and not infected, but they have to slaughter it, and they can’t do it themselves. The decree doesn’t make sense, and they’re the ones who end up losing money day after day.”

Abdel Gayyed can sympathize, estimating that only a quarter of the nation’s poultry farmers have access to licensed slaughterhouses.

“Besides, some of the slaughterhouses have serious problems and have been out of service for some time,” he adds. “Take, for example, Kafr El-Arbeen slaughterhouse in Al-Qalyoubeya. It has the capacity to handle 15,000 chickens a day, but it’s been out of service for more than a year because of operational and cash-flow issues. Many houses have fridges that need serious maintenance. Due to low demand for their services in normal times, these slaughterhouses were closed more than once after the Electricity Authority cut them off because they failed to pay their bills. Now, we need them — urgently.”

Abdel Gayyed and public health officials worry about small-scale farmers’ ignorance and fears more than anything else. “Because they didn’t know what to do with their birds or because they hadn’t gotten help when they called for it, some farmers, out of fear and ignorance, have thrown both dead or live birds into water canals to get rid of them. That’s a real disaster,” he asserts.

Minister of Public Works and Water Resources Mahmoud Abu Zeid has warned citizens with sick or dead birds not to throw the carcasses, organs or even feathers in canals, streams or public dumpsters.

“Those who have infected or dead birds shouldn’t touch them by hand but should wear a plastic bag on their hands while putting them in tightly closed bags and pouring chlorine over [the birds], after which they should report the nearest medical center or call the emergency number to handle [the birds],” says Abdel Gayyed. “This time, people, not the government, have a huge responsibility to help themselves at the least, if not the country.”

The Ministry of State for the Environment has designated 250 regional burial sites across the nation in addition to the major state-run facility at Al-Salam City and a site operated by the charity society Al-Wafaa we Al-Amal.

But some, including El-Farrargy, complain that help has been slow in arriving.

“We throw [dead birds] in the streets because we can wait forever and help would still be on the way. It’s like the firefighters — by the time they come, they find that the building has already burned to the ground. So they want us to bag the deadly birds and let them sit next to our children and wives until their royal highnesses arrive? What are the garbage cans for, then? Why don’t they go and pick them up from there instead of urging us to turn our houses into dumpsters for dead birds?” he complains.

El-Farrargy obviously has trust issues with the government, and many citizens are complaining that usually reliable non-governmental organizations have lagged far behind the government in the crisis. A handful of NGOs devised a national campaign to solicit donations to help farmers and raise awareness, but their response has been sluggish at best. At one meeting, a Cairo-based NGO proposed asking the Mufti of Al-Azhar whether it would be legitimate to give zakat funds to chicken breeders or use them to buy healthy birds from housewives raising them at home. The eventual verdict: Yes, so long as the person is “poor” and their living is endangered by the crisis.

Omm Hanyya is poor, but she can still put bread on the table, she claims. The question is: For how long? Nowadays, she passes the time sipping coffee by herself on her haunted roof top.

“I don’t want hassana [charity],” she says. “I want my business back. Until then, I won’t beg people for money — I’ll sit on my prayer mat and wish all birds well.”

At press time, chicken farmers in 11 governorates with cases of the flu could do little more than join her in praying for a better day.  et