Cape Verde's government has officially closed all access to Santo Antao island, where a dead egret was spotted on Thursday, the state news agency of the island country reported on Friday.

The dead fowl has been sent to Dakar, the capital of Cape Verde's neighboring Senegal, for tests to see if it had been killed by the deadly H5N1 bird flu strain.

Meanwhile, the West African country has asked local authorities to educate people on prevention measures, and residents have been advised not to touch dead birds and report any dead fowl they find to the authorities immediately.

A total of 900,000 euros (about 1,080,000 U.S. dollars) has been distributed to local governments to help with their prevention efforts.

An H5N1 case was detected in Nigeria on Feb. 8, signaling the arrival of the virus onto the African continent, which is considered very vulnerable because of its weak health and prevention resources and systems.

Source: Xinhua