Turkish boy critical in bird-flu battle

A five-year-old boy battling the deadly H5N1 bird flu strain in Turkey was reported to be in a critical condition today as experts awaited test results on three others admitted to hospital with symptoms at Europe’s doorstep.

Muhammet Ozcan, whose 12-year-old sister, Fatma, died on Sunday of the disease, was listed as critical at a hospital in the eastern city of Van. He was being treated for fever and a lung infection.

Both children came from Dogubayazit, the same town where three siblings died of bird flu about 10 days ago. Fatma was the fourth Turkish child to die of H5N1, according to preliminary tests, and the country’s 20th human case.

Five patients have been discharged from hospitals, leaving only 11 still being treated, the health ministry said yesterday.

In Geneva, World Health Organisation (WHO) spokeswoman Maria Cheng said the agency accepted the 20 human cases reported by Turkey, but was waiting for the results of further tests by a British lab before changing its official toll, which stands at four cases, including two deaths.

Samples had been held up by a religious holiday in Turkey, but were expected to arrive in Britain, Cheng said. Results would start coming back this week, she said.

Experts are concerned that the virus could mutate into a form that would spread easily among humans, triggering a pandemic capable of killing millions. The WHO has stressed that it has no evidence of person-to-person infection occurring in Turkey.

Turkey’s crisis continued to unnerve its neighbours.

Greece’s health minister urged Greeks to avoid travelling to Turkey, and Syria said it had begun disinfecting people and vehicles at border crossings.

A politician in Russia, meanwhile, said his government would fly home more than 8,000 hajj pilgrims who had travelled to Mecca via Turkish provinces to avoid subjecting them to further risk.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation warned that bird flu might already have spread from Turkey to neighbouring countries, though it said it had no confirmation of that. It said Armenia, Georgia, Iran and Syria were at risk along with Bulgaria, Moldova, Iraq and Ukraine.

“You have to face the fact that the virus is in their neighbourhood,” said Samuel Jutzi, who heads the agency’s animal health-division.

Turkish agriculture minister Mehdi Eker also asserted that the disease had spread, and suggested some countries were concealing it.

“Certain closed regimes are hiding this. We know for fact that this disease exists in other places, but there are some (countries) that are hiding it,” he said in an interview with NTV television.

With Turks complaining of symptoms still checking into hospitals, there were concerns that the virus might still be spreading despite the precautionary slaughter of 931,000 chickens, geese and turkeys.

Health officials said all 20 people with confirmed H5N1 infection appeared to have touched or played with birds.

Among those getting treatment were three children with bird-flu symptoms in Istanbul, where Europe and Asia meet at the Bosporus Strait. Officials were waiting to see if tests confirmed that they, too, were infected with H5N1.

At least 77 people in east and south-east Asia have died since the virus first surfaced there in 2003, the WHO says. It has been tracking the outbreak closely to determine whether the virus is changing.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip’s cabinet met to discuss further measures to combat the outbreak, and authorities yesterday banned the transport of all birds and hoofed animals, except racehorses, as a precaution.