Expert trains doctors to contain bird flu

A World Health Organisation expert trained doctors and nurses today on how to keep the deadly H5N1 virus from spreading through one gritty hospital clinic on Turkey’s front line in its battle against bird flu.

Dr Nahoko Shindo, a WHO specialist in emerging and dangerous pathogens, warned that because a hospital is where the infected gather for treatment, it “is the first place a pandemic could start.”

“If the virus mutates and gets characteristics of highly transmissible virus, that’s the beginning of a pandemic,” Shindo said during the session in the eastern city of Van, where all four of Turkey’s human bird flu deaths occurred - and where more than 30 people complaining of symptoms were being treated.

Health experts are watching the development of H5N1 closely for fear it could mutate into a form easily passed between humans and spark a pandemic.

“The viruses are very unstable and can evolve very quickly,” Shindo told more than 100 doctors and nurses gathered in a chilly meeting room with poor light and no heating.

She urged staff to wash their hands, wear gloves at all times, and to limit the number of visitors to flu patients.

But even before the session ended, many participants had drifted away. A steady stream of visitors was seen trudging through corridors, leaving muddy footprints, as the number of people did not seem to be controlled. One senior doctor seemed unconcerned about the potential danger, and brought two young daughters to the clinic.

Dr Aydin Deveci said many of the hospital staff had trouble understanding the training in English, and that it would be repeated later in Turkish.

Shindo said she had been in Van for 10 days, showing doctors and nurses how to protect themselves and their patients.

She demonstrated suits, masks, goggles and other protective clothing that the WHO recommends for use while treating patients for viruses such as flu.

All four of the children who have died of H5N1 infection in Turkey succumbed to the disease at the 100th Year Hospital, and doctors were attending to a five-year-old boy today who was listed in critical condition after his sister died of the deadly strain last weekend.