ISTANBUL,
January 5, 2006 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – A
15-year-old girl died from bird flu in eastern Turkey, in the second
human fatality from the deadly virus in the country, doctors said
Thursday, January 5.
Fatma
Kocyigit died in a hospital in the town of Van, near the Iranian and
Armenian borders, at 6: 30 am (0430 GMT), doctor Ahmed Faik Oner was
quoted as saying by Agence France Presse (AFP).
The
15-year-old girl had been in a critical condition since Wednesday,
January 4.
Her
brother, 14-year-old Mehmet, died at the weekend.
Authorities
confirmed late Wednesday that the boy had died from bird flue, the
first known human fatality from the disease outside Southeast Asia and
China, where it has killed more than 70 people since late 2003, nearly
40 of them in 2005 alone.
"There
are two cases that have been confirmed as positive by the
laboratory," said Turkish Health Minister Recep Akdag.
"Another
case is suspected of being positive. We have a pandemic plan ready.
There is no need to be too alarmist."
The
deadly H5N1 form of bird flu cannot pass among people the way ordinary
seasonal flu does, but experts fear it could mutate into a form which
can be transmitted from person to person.
Infections
Seven
other people, including two other members of the Kocyigit family, are
still being treated for bird flu-like symptoms.
Fatma's
sister, Hulya, was in a particularly bad condition, Oner told the
state-run Anatolian news agency.
Minister
Akdag said Wednesday that the family members had eaten diseased
chickens.
The
Kocyigit family is from the remote town of Dogubeyazit, near Turkey's
borders with Iran and Armenia and about 100 km (60 miles) south of
Aralik, a village on the flight path of migratory birds blamed for the
spread of the epidemic.
Aralik
was put under quarantine last week after fowl there tested positive
for the H5 strain of bird flu.
Officials
were still awaiting the results of further tests being conducted in
London to determine whether any of some 750 birds slaughtered in the
village had the virus.
Hunting
Ban
 |
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Mehmet was the first known human fatality from the disease outside Southeast Asia and China. (Reuters)
|
Six
people have been sent to hospital in a second province in eastern
Turkey with suspected bird flu, NTV commercial television reported on
Thursday.
NTV
said the six patients were from Igdir province on the Armenian border,
just to the north of Agri province where the two dead children came
from.
Environment
Minister Osman Pepe on Thursday re-imposed a ban on the hunting of
wild birds in the east of the country.
"The
ban will be in place until the end of the problem. We should neither
overestimate nor underestimate the events," Pepe told a press
conference in the southern city of Antalya.
The
first case of H5N1 in Turkey was uncovered in October at a turkey farm
in Kiziksa, a village in the northeastern province of Balikesir,
abutting a wildlife reserve that is a well-known stopover for
migratory birds.
On
December 9, Turkish officials said that they had eradicated the avian
flu virus in that region after testing thousands of samples and
culling 10,000 birds.
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