Bird flu spread in Turkey sparks new fears

Bird flu in humans appears to be spreading in Turkey, with three people in Ankara testing positive for the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu in preliminary tests, representing the first suspected cases outside the eastern city of Van.

Health officials caution that the virus has so far only been confirmed in humans who were in close and prolonged contact with fowl, but are monitoring the virus for fear it could mutate into a form easily transmissible among humans and spark a pandemic.

Two siblings have died in Van and a third also died of suspected bird flu in the city, but the cause of death has not yet been confirmed by a World Health Organisation laboratory.

If confirmed, the third sibling and the three new cases in Ankara, about 600 miles west of Van, would bring to 10 the total number of bird flu cases in humans in Turkey. Seven are currently in hospital and three have died.

Maria Cheng, a WHO spokeswoman in Geneva, said the UN health agency had too little information to confirm the three cases in Ankara.

“We’ve been informed about it, but we’re not confirming those today,” she said. “We don’t have confirmation from the Ministry of Health about what exactly that means, if this is based on laboratory testing or whether that was done.”

The fatalities here were the first caused by the virus outside of 74 deaths in east Asia, where the virus killed more than half of the people it infected.

A British laboratory confirmed the deadly H5N1 strain of the virus in a five-year-old Turkish boy, and Cheng said WHO has accepted Turkish testing as confirming the infection in an eight-year-old girl as well.

Both children are in intensive care in Van, 60 miles from the Iranian border. Another brother and sister in Van also were found to be positive for H5N1 in the preliminary tests, Health Ministry official Turan Buzgan said.

The two children and an adult who were hospitalised in the Turkish capital, Ankara, would be the first cases of H5N1 found outside the vicinity of Van.

Health Minister Recep Akdag arrived in Van late yesterday with officials from WHO. They were to travel today to Dogubayazit, a largely Kurdish town where most of the cases have originated.

Guenael Rodier, a senior official for communicable diseases at WHO praised the Turkish government for its policy of “transparency” in the outbreak.

“It has allowed us to bring our experience in other countries,” Rodier said. “The problem is local but it is also global.”

Dozens of people who had recently been in close contact with fowl have been hospitalised and were being tested for bird flu across Turkey, as reports of outbreaks and a sense of worry spread across the country and into others.

The doctor who treated the three children who died in Van said they probably contracted the illness by playing with dead chickens.

Health officials believe the best way to fight the spread of bird flu is the wholesale destruction of poultry in the affected area. But they often run into problems in rural areas like Dogubayazit, where villagers have resisted turning in their animals.

Yesterday, a group of Turkish workers in Dogubayazit had to climb over a wall when a woman refused to open the door and hand over her several chickens, insisting they were not sick. The workers could not persuade her to part with the chickens and left, saying they would return with police.