KABUL, Afghanistan — Raising chickens has always been women’s work in Afghanistan, and in the past several years this backyard occupation has brought new independence and income to thousands of illiterate war widows who have few other ways to earn a living.

So when avian flu was detected here six months ago, and several cases of its virulent H5N1 strain confirmed by U.N. experts in March, ripples of rumor and panic coursed through the loosely organized groups of widows in greater Kabul who raise some of Afghanistan’s estimated 12.1 million chickens and sell their eggs for 2 cents apiece.

Link By Pamela Constable, for Washington Post