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.

Health authorities went on high alert today following Iraq’s first reported case of the deadly bird flu virus, culling hundreds of thousands of birds and warning farmers across the country to inspect their flocks.

IRAQ was yesterday investigating if a 14-year-old girl who died of a fever had contracted the human strain of the bird flu virus, while Turkey and China also reported new deaths from the deadly disease.

Iraqi doctors are investigating if the deadly bird flu virus was responsible for the death of a 15-year-old girl in Kurdistan near the border with Turkey and Iran, an Iraqi Health Ministry official said today.