Vaccinations recommended after deadly bird flu found in Turkey

EU Health Commissioner Markos Kyprianou today said he advocated “the increase of vaccination among the risk population” to deal with a potential or possible pandemic.

The European Union said the bird flu virus found in Turkish poultry was the H5N1 strain that scientists worry might mutate into a human virus and spark a pandemic.

“We have received confirmation that the virus found in Turkey is an avian flu H5N1 virus,” said Kyprianou. “There is a direct relationship with viruses found in Russia, Mongolia and China.”

Kyprianou said precautionary measures being assessed were to warn people travelling to countries where the disease has been diagnosed to avoid “going to farms, coming in contact with wild birds and so on.”

The H5N1 bird flu strain does not easily infect humans, but 117 people, mostly poultry workers, have caught it over the past two years and 60 of them had died.

Scientists were tracking the spread of the virus in birds because it could mutate into a dangerous human pandemic strain.