Deaglán de Bréadún, Foreign Affairs Correspondent, visits the remote villlage in Azerbaijan that has found itself in the eye of the storm over bird flu
Poverty and disease don't always go hand-in-hand. The home of the Asgarov family is surprisingly large and prosperous-looking. A big, white, two-storey building with six windows at the front, it could for all the world be the residence of a well-to-do farmer in the Ireland of the 1950s or early 1960s.
The house is located in the village of Daikyand (spelt various ways, but pronounced "die-chand") in south-eastern Azerbaijan, about two hours' drive from the capital, Baku.
An eager youngster from a neighbouring house offered to make the introductions and, before he could be restrained, the boy was at the front gate looking for the Asgarovs. But there was nobody home or, if they were, they weren't coming out.
The buzz of activity in other houses all around highlighted the eerie stillness at the Asgarov home. The only sign of life was a wolf-dog, typical of the region, that was chained to a gatepost but still barked gamely at nosy strangers. His masters might be laid low but he would protect them to the last.
It's a tragic tale, the story of the Asgarovs. Although there are different versions of it, the common thread in most of them is that a number of dead swans came into their possession. Swans are plentiful in the flat, swampy terrain which typifies the surrounding district and are meant to be a protected species but someone was doing a spot of hunting. At their large house in Daikyand, the Asgarovs plucked the swan feathers, no doubt with a view to selling this valuable commodity at a later stage.
We are told that afterwards they barbecued the swan meat for dinner. It was a birthday celebration and the extended family was gathered at the house in Daikyand. The people of Azerbaijan are a jovial lot who like to laugh and joke and dance in the dramatic Caucasian fashion with arms outspread. No doubt it was a happy occasion with much merriment and song.
The aftermath was not so happy. Either the swan-meat or the feathers was infected with H5NI, a deadly virus which causes avian influenza or "bird flu". Within weeks, three members of the Asgarovs' immediate or extended family as well as a close family friend were dead, all of them aged between 16 and 20 years.
The sequence was as follows: a 17-year-old girl died on February 23rd. Her first cousin, a 20-year-old woman named Nabat Asgarova, died on March 3rd. Nabat's 16-year-old brother, also a resident of the house at Daikyand, died on March 10th; his name was given as Sahmar or Shahmar Asgarov. A 17-year-old girl, a close friend of the family, died on March 8th. Samples from all four victims were tested for the World Health Organisation (WHO) at a British laboratory. Positive H5N1 results were obtained for each of them.
It was reported that the villagers of Daikyand were struck with fear when they heard the tragic news. These are country folk, living in a place that is remote from the great highways of the world. It was said they even stayed away from the Asgarov funerals, which was a major breach with tradition for these deeply religious people.
But last week there was a different mood. Two women in the village, neighbours of the Asgarovs were reassured and even cheerful. Shafiga and Goychay Azizova, who are married to two local brothers, said they were "worried and afraid" at first but when they learned more about how to avoid the disease, it eased their fears.
"People came from Baku, as well as some foreigners, and they gave us information about this." For example, they now wash eggs with soap before use and then boil them very intensely before eating. In addition, "all the houses of the village" had been disinfected.
With all four victims in their teens or early 20s, an official in the local administration, Aleddin Abbasov said it appeared those under the age of 40 were more susceptible to the illness. He was optimistic that the disease was under control, not least because of the efforts of Azeri medical personnel as well as international bodies such as WHO and UNICEF. "We don't think it will come again," he said.
The great fear is that bird flu will at some stage begin to be transmitted on a human-to-human basis. There is no evidence of that so far and the measures taken by the Azeri authorities and international agencies have focussed on preventing transmission from birds to humans. But the difficulty in obtaining hard facts and the prevalence of contradictory statements are not reassuring.
People in Daikyand and the surrounding Salyan region live close to the earth and to nature. Travelling there by road, you will come across locals selling live fish from metal bath-tubs at the roadside. If there is a fault in nature, it will quickly be visited on the human population.
Asked if he was scared of contracting bird flu, a man from the neighbouring village of Sarvan said: "People don't worry about this because many foreign organisations came and gave them education about it." He added: "The whole village was disinfected."
At the same time there are suspicions and superstitions. "The population of this area doesn't believe it was bird flu." They thought the disease was "something else" but what this nameless plague might be, nobody could or would say. Indeed, Naile Asgarova, mother of the family in Daikyend was quoted as telling reporters at a Shiite Muslim memorial service on March 16th: "Bird flu is a big lie. They can't figure out why my children died because they're stupid, so they called it that."
If the worst should happen and bird flu becomes a deadly form of "human flu", the result could be a raging pandemic that would kill anything from five million to 150 million people worldwide.
The flu outbreak of 1918-19 left an estimated 50 million people dead. The official death-toll internationally stands at 109, out of 192 diagnosed cases, but little progress is reported in terms of either treatment or prevention. Unless the world's luck holds, we are all potential Asgarovs.