A Turkish vet official tries to collect poultry in the eastern town of Dogubayazit. (Reuters)

In Turkey, the third death Friday triggered accusations that the government had failed to prevent the spread of the virus, but Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan insisted the authorities had not delayed taking the necessary action.

The latest victim, 11-year-old Hulya Kocyigit, died early Friday in a hospital in the eastern city of Van after spending several days in intensive care, Huseyin Avni Sahin, the chief doctor at the hospital, told AFP.

Her death comes a day after her 15-year-old sister Fatma succumbed to the disease in the same hospital.

Their 14-year-old brother, Muhammet Ali, died Sunday, becoming the first known human casualty of bird flu outside Southeast Asia and China where it has killed more than 70 people since late 2003, nearly 40 of them in 2005 alone.

Sahin said 26 other people, including a fourth member of the Kocyigit family, were being treated in the hospital for bird-flu symptoms.

Three of the patients were in intensive care and one of them was in a "critical condition", he added.

The Kocyigit family is from the impoverished remote eastern town of Dogubeyazit where many families depend on poultry breeding for their livelihoods and live close to their animals, making it harder to contain the spread of the virus.

The Kocyigit children were hospitalized last week after coming into contact with ill chickens that they lived with in the same house.

The family killed and ate the chickens when they fell sick, with press reports claiming that the siblings played with the heads of dead chicken.

Currently humans only contract bird flu if they come into close contact with infected birds, but scientists fear millions around the world could die if the virus crosses with human flu strains to become highly contagious.

Many Dogubeyazit residents thronged the local hospital Friday, fearful of having caught bird flu, while others accused authorities of failing to properly inform them on the disease.

"I ate chicken four days ago and I now feel very sick," Ozlem Ates, a teenager about 15 years of age, told AFP in between bouts of vomiting in the corridors of the town's dilapidated looking hospital.

"I fear I have bird flu," she added before being taken away by staff for a check.

The Turkish press ran angry headlines, accusing the government of not acting fast enough to contain the disease.

"Who will account for this?," asked the mass circulation Hurriyet daily on its front page, while the liberal Radikal daily said: "It is spreading!"

"The health ministry says there is no delay," Erdogan told reporters in capital Ankara. "All the relevant ministries are taking the necessary precautions".

Erdogan said the authorities had prepared a leaflet for locals detailing the precautionary measures they should take against the spread of bird flu and this was being distributed.

The prime minister, however, stressed the need to keep the public fully informed of what was happening.

He said mosques would also be used to relay information about the disease and the measures needed to fight it during Friday prayers across the overwhelmingly Muslim country, Reuters said.

Authorities have sent extra supplies of the Tamiflu medicine used against the disease to Van, which is about 800 km (500 miles) east Ankara.

Dogubeyazit is less then 100 kilometers (60 miles) from the town of Aralik, which was quarantined last week after poultry there tested positive for H5 bird flu.

Officials were still awaiting the results of further tests being conducted in London to determine whether any of the thousands of birds slaughtered in the village suffered from the H5N1 strain.

As veterinary experts swooped down on both towns, culling poultry and disinfecting the area, Turkish Agriculture Minister Mehdi Eker Thursday confirmed at least four new outbreaks of bird flu in poultry in the eastern provinces of Igdir and Erzurum, and the southeastern province of Sanliurfa.

The first case of H5N1 in birds in the country was uncovered in October at a turkey farm in Kiziksa, a village in the western province of Balikesir abutting a wildlife reserve that is a well-known stopover for migratory birds blamed for transporting the virus.

Officials announced December 9 that they had eradicated the disease.