Tests in Turkey rule out bird flu

TESTS on five people, including a dead child, for possible bird flu in eastern Turkey have proved negative, a health ministry official said yesterday.

The child tested for bird flu died on Sunday. He was one of several people from the same district who underwent tests in Van hospital near the Iranian border after exhibiting symptoms of influenza.

“The tests on samples from the dead child and four other people suspected [of having bird flu] came back negative,” the ministry’s basic health services general manager Turan Buzgan said.

“The sickness is not a result of bird flu or any influenza virus,” he said.

It was not clear what caused the death of 14-year-old Mehmet Ali Kocyigit. He was one of four children from the same family who fell ill.

Turkey, which lies on the path of migratory birds that are believed to spread the virus, has suffered two outbreaks of the highly contagious disease among poultry in the past three months, the latest last week in the eastern province of Igdir.

No humans are known to have contracted the disease in Turkey or Europe, though veterinary experts across the continent have been on alert culling birds and taking other precautionary measures.

In the Igdir outbreak, the strain has been identified as the H5 type but authorities are conducting further tests to see whether it is the deadly H5N1 strain that has killed scores of people in east Asia since 2003.