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Three in family dead, now fourth has virus |
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BAKU: Local scientists have found a strain of bird flu in a 16-year-old girl from a family in Azerbaijan which has lost three members to the H5N1 virus, deputy health minister Abbas Velibeyov said yesterday. "To confirm the presence of the virus, we intend to send samples to the laboratory in London. But clinical observation shows this girl has bird flu," Velibeyov said. Five young people, three of them from the Askerov family, have died from bird flu in Azerbaijan. But the girl, who is now in hospital, is the first new case of suspected infection since the first week of this month. |
Velibeyov said the girl had probably caught the virus via the same route as her other family members, who are thought to have been infected while plucking feathers from dead swans. The World Health Organisation has said in the past it believes the Azeri laboratory is reliable but it also sends samples to a WHO-accredited laboratory in Britain for confirmation. Reuters
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