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Turk girl
dies from suspected bird flu, brother ill By Enis Durak The Star, 16 Jan 2006 |
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VAN, Turkey (Reuters) - A Turkish girl died on Sunday from suspected bird flu, while her brother was critically ill in hospital after testing positive for the virus. Although the Health Ministry said initial tests on Fatma Ozcan had proved negative, doctors still suspect she contracted the deadly disease.
If both siblings are confirmed to have the disease, it would bring the number of human cases in Turkey to 20. The ministry said tests on her brother Muhammet, five, showed he has the H5N1 strain of avian influenza, which has already killed three other children in Dogubayazit, the same town in eastern Van province that the Ozcan family come from. Several tests are required to establish whether a patient has H5N1. One of the children who died last week initially tested negative. "The girl who was under treatment in Van, Fatma Ozcan, died today of lung failure. She couldn't be saved," the Health Ministry said in a statement. |
"The first laboratory tests ... came out negative for bird flu but tests continue." It added: "Her brother who was in the same hospital ... came out positive today." Separately, Van university hospital doctor Huseyin Avni Sahin told reporters: "Fatma Ozcan died today from suspected avian influenza, she came from Dogubayazit five days ago." Sahin said Fatma, 12, was initially taken to a hospital in Dogubayazit after developing a fever and a cough after preparing and chicken with her family. She was later taken to Van. The H5N1 virus has been found in wild birds and poultry across large parts of Turkey, particularly in poor villages stretching from Istanbul at the gates of Europe to Van near the Iranian and Iraqi borders. The World Health Organization (WHO) says it believes human victims have contracted the disease from close contact with infected poultry, in most cases children playing with birds or helping families kill them for food or sale. FIRST CASES OUTSIDE ASIA The Turkish victims are the first human cases reported outside east Asia since H5N1 reemerged in 2003. The virus mostly affects birds but has infected about 150 people and killed at least 78. Most of the dozen or so bird flu patients are not in critical condition but are still receiving treatment, with |
three people released from hospital last week, the WHO said. Two children, 11 and 13, with bird flu-like symptoms have been hospitalized in Istanbul after coming into contact with chickens in Gebze town, state news agency Anatolian said on Saturday. The children were being treated in hospital, but it was not immediately clear whether they had been tested for bird flu. So far, bird flu has been confirmed only in poultry in Istanbul, a city of 12 million people on the edge of Europe. Bird flu has swept across a third of the country since the start of the year. The authorities have culled 600,000 wild birds and poultry to try to contain the crisis. Health officials are going from house to house, particularly in the east of Turkey, searching for birds to cull. WHO doctors said there was no sign of human-to-human transmission in the Turkish outbreak. However, experts from another U.N. body, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), have said the virus risked becoming a constant problem in Turkey as it is in poultry in parts of Asia. Turkey's government has set up a committee to discuss the crisis that has hit the country's $3 billion poultry industry. (Additional reporting by Daren Butler in Istanbul) |
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