Four of the 21 have died in this at the Van University hospital in this eastern city, where they were brought in too late to be saved, according to chief physician Huseyin Avni Sahin. 

Authorities have drawn hope from the statistics, saying they compare favourably with the mortality rate from bird flu in eastern Asia, where it has claimed some 80 lives – or 58%of all confirmed cases – since 2003. 

“In my opinion, the virus is probably mutating in a manner favorable to humans,” Sahin said on Sunday. 

All four who died in Turkey from the disease – the first victims outside China and South-East Asia – were treated at Sahin’s hospital, where four more children are currently undergoing treatment, including five-year-old Muhammed Ozcan. 

The boy, whose 16-year-old sister Fatma was the last person to die of H5N1   in   Turkey   on   Jan 15,   spent

several days hovering between life and death and is now steadily improving, despite having been brought late to the hospital. 

The Van hospital has been at the centre of the war against bird flu in Turkey since the first cases arrived here late in December from the remote town of Dogubeyazit, near Turkey’s border with Iran. 

“We gained a lot of experience” since then, Sahin explained. “We react much faster now and put the patients under medication much faster than we used to. 

“If the virus does not mutate into a form transmissible between humans, I am convinced that we will overcome the crisis,” he said. – AFP