Teenage boy confirmed as Turkey’s first bird flu victim

TURKEY’S health minister last night confirmed two human cases of bird flu, including a teenage farm boy who died after developing pneumonia-like symptoms.

The 14-year-old boy’s sister, who is in hospital and in a serious condition, also tested positive for bird flu, health minister Recep Akdag said.

A third sibling is also suspected of having bird flu.

Mr Akdag’s statement contradicted a ministry statement earlier this week, which said the boy’s death was not caused by bird flu.

The minister did not say if the boy had died of the deadly H5N1 strain, but he said samples were being sent to European labs for further tests. Authorities are closely monitoring H5N1, for fear it could mutate into a form easily passed between humans and spark a pandemic.

If the boy’s death is confirmed as being H5N1, it would be the first death outside eastern Asia in the current outbreak. More than 70 people have died from the virus.

The teenager, Mehmet Ali Kocyigit, died in a hospital in the south-eastern Van province on Sunday.

Birds in Turkey, Romania, Russia and Croatia have recently tested positive for H5N1.

Mehmet was among two brothers and two sisters admitted to hospital last week after developing high fevers, coughing and bleeding in their throats.

The children helped to raise poultry on a small farm in the town of Dogubeyazit, near Mount Ararat - believed to be the resting place of Noah’s Ark - and were in close contact with sick birds.

Dogubeyazit is some 40 miles away from the town of Aralik where last week chickens tested positive for an H5 variant of bird flu.