Turkey announces third bird flu death, new infections

12-year-old boy discharged after responding positively to treatment

A duck peers from a plastic bag after being collected with other poultry by Turkish Agriculture Ministry employees in a small village near the eastern Turkish town of Dogubayazit yesterday.

By Hande Culpan - Agence France-Presse

ANKARA - Turkey yesterday announced its third bird flu death and two new cases of human infection as the authorities mounted a public information campaign to combat the disease, which experts fear may spread to neighboring countries.

The Turkish Health Ministry said new tests showed that an 11-year-old girl who died last week at a hospital in the eastern Turkish city of Van had succumbed to the highly virulent H5N1 strain.

She was the sister of two siblings, aged 14 and 15, who also died of bird flu, the first human casualties of the disease outside Southeast Asia and China, where the disease has killed nearly 80 people since 2003.

The ministry said two more patients from the southeastern cities of Siirt and Sanliurfa identified as carriers of the virus were in stable condition. The Anatolia news agency said both were children. The test results brought to 18 the number of Turks infected with the disease — including the three who died — since it emerged in the east of the country last month.

In a brighter development, a 12-year-old boy who was being treated in the northern city of Samsun for H5N1 infection was discharged after he responded positively to treatment, a hospital spokesman said.

At a WHO-sponsored meeting in Tokyo to discuss measures against a possible pandemic, the organization’s director for the Western Pacific issued a sombre warning.

“As the new human cases in Turkey show, the situation is worsening with each passing month and the threat of an influenza pandemic continues to grow every day,” Shigeru Omi told delegates.

In a bid to prevent fresh infections, Turkey’s Agriculture Ministry said it had sent leaflets to all of the country’s 81 provinces, informing people about the disease and how it spreads.

It said all national television channels had started broadcasting spot warnings, urging people to stay away from poultry and wash their hands if they come into contact with fowl.

Turkish Agriculture Minister Mehdi Eker yesterday blamed free-range poultry in rural areas and city outskirts for the spread of the virus to nearly a third of the country’s 81 provinces.

“We have to accept this is an important risk factor,” Eker said in a televised speech.

He said the deadly strain had so far been identified in poultry in 11 of Turkey’s 81 provinces, with a further 31 suspected outbreaks in 14 others. Some 355,000 wild birds and poultry have so far been culled, he said.