American and UN health experts have arrived in Iraq to help this war-ravaged country fight a new battle – bird flu. Officials said yesterday that at least eight people are in hospital suffering symptoms akin to the deadly H5N1 strain.

A United Nations official and the health minister in Iraqi Kurdistan today said a 15-year-old girl who died earlier this month in northern Iraq was a victim of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu, the first known case of the disease in the country.