Turkey culls 764,000 fowl in fight against bird flu

Turkey has slaughtered 764,000 fowl nationwide in its fight to contain the bird flu outbreak, the government’s bird flu crisis centre said today.

Nineteen people have tested positive in preliminary Turkish screenings for the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu, and three of them have died. Authorities were trying to determine whether a 12-year-old girl who died yesterday was the outbreak’s latest victim.

Turkey has been destroying fowl in areas where the disease was confirmed or suspected in birds in an attempt to limit contact between fowl and people.

Officials have said all the people with confirmed H5N1 infection appear to have contracted the virus by touching or playing with birds. There was no evidence of person-to-person infection.

Five-year-old Muhammet Ozcan, admitted to hospital in the eastern city of Van with a fever and a light lung infection, tested positive for the virulent H5N1 virus yesterday, increasing the number of infected people in Turkey to 19, Turkish authorities said. The World Health Organisation has not yet confirmed that case.

His 12-year-old sister Fatma – who initially was believed to have died of the disease – tested negative in initial tests. Authorities were carrying further tests to determine whether she also was infected. If confirmed, her death would be the fourth fatality in Turkey.

At least 77 others in east and south Asia have died since the virus first surfaced there in 2003, the WHO says.

Authorities quickly buried Fatma yesterday evening, wrapping her in a special body bag to contain any virus, following a quick prayer at a snow-covered cemetery under torch light. The girl was from the town of Dogubayazit – the same town where three siblings died of bird flu about 10 days ago.

At least two of the H5N1 patients have been discharged from hospitals after recovering from the virus, and the WHO was examining the cases closely as it tracks how the virus may be changing. Health experts are concerned that the virus could mutate into a form that would spread easily among humans, triggering a pandemic capable of killing millions.

Turkish authorities on Monday continued destroying tens of thousands of birds nationwide as a precaution. At least 764,000 domestic birds have been killed, the crisis centre said, and bird flu in birds is now confirmed or suspected in 29 of Turkey’s 81 provinces.

Authorities were also trying to save some of the fowl. Yesterday, people living in remote villages in central Turkey began to disinfect their chicken coops after the Agriculture Ministry distributed special kits.

“We are disinfecting the poultry houses in the village to prevent the spread of the deadly bird flu virus with the equipment we received from the Agriculture Ministry, and we hope it works,” said Adil Ova, chief official in the village of Ishan.