Turkey bird flu showing signs of decline

The UN’s health agency has said that it expects the number of new bird flu infections among humans in Turkey to decline, as three young boys with the deadly virus were healthy enough to be released from the hospital.

The boys were among 21 people who preliminary tests indicated were infected with the deadly H5N1 strain of the virus in Turkey. One of them, a four-year-old from the city of Sanliurfa, was said to have recovered completely. In Ankara, two brothers, ages five and two, were also healthy enough to be discharged from a hospital yesterday.

The World Health Organisation said it expected fewer cases of human infection to emerge.

“The situation is getting better,” WHO spokeswoman Cristiana Salvi said yesterday. She warned, however, that it was still too early to say the crisis was over.

“We can expect a few more cases” of infection, she said.

“A lot of effort is being put into controlling the outbreak in animals,” Salvi said, “but it takes time.”

As part of those efforts to control the outbreak in poultry, Turkey’s government has culled 1.1 million fowl, and its campaign warning people to avoid contact with sick birds has begun to kick in.

“Some additional human cases should be anticipated in the immediate future,” the health agency said on its Web site. ”The number of these cases is, however, expected to decline as high-risk behaviours become less common and culling operations ... reduce the number of infected birds.”

Most of the cases in Turkey involved children and teenagers between the ages of 4 and 18.

By culling birds, Turkey hopes to limit contact with humans in this largely rural country, where most villagers raise their own chickens, turkeys and geese.

Experts fear the virus could mutate into a form spread easily among humans, triggering a pandemic capable of killing millions. The virus has jumped from poultry to people, killing at least 79 people in east Asia and Turkey since 2003.

The WHO has stressed it has no evidence of person-to-person infection in Turkey, where H5N1 has killed four children so far.