Bird flu fears in Turkey

Associated Press

DOGUBAYAZIT, Turkey — Fears rose today that a deadly strain of bird flu was spreading in Turkey after preliminary tests showed two children and an adult tested positive for the virus in Ankara — the first known cases outside an eastern region.

Health officials cautioned that the H5N1 strain so far has only been confirmed in humans who were in close and prolonged contact with fowl but said they were monitoring the virus for fear it could mutate into a form easily transmissible among humans and spark a pandemic.

A 15-year-old girl and her 14-year-old brother from the eastern town of Dogubayazit died of the disease last week — the first humans outside East Asia to succumb to the deadly strain that has apparently been spread by migratory birds.

A third sibling also was believed to have died of bird flu, but the World Health Organization has not confirmed the cause of death.

A British laboratory, meanwhile, confirmed the deadly H5N1 strain of the virus in a 5-year-old Turkish boy, while preliminary tests in Turkey detected the strain in an 8-year-old girl. Both children are in intensive care in Van, about 600 miles east of Ankara.

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 announcements raised to 10 the number of suspected cases detected since Wednesday, including the three deaths.

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

Russia's chief epidemiologist, Gennady Onishchenko, urged Russians not to travel to eastern parts of Turkey because of the bird flu outbreak, according to a statement released Sunday. Iran also has closed down its border to Turkish citizens.

Birds in Turkey, Romania, Russia and Croatia have recently tested positive for H5N1, which killed 74 people in East Asia.

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.

Authorities here have had difficulties explaining the danger of close contact with fowl to local residents and the need to deliver all birds for destruction, whether or not they appear sick.

"This virus spreads rapidly,'' workers shouted through loudspeakers in Dogubayazit on Sunday, demanding that villagers turn in their poultry.

A group of Turkish workers, meanwhile, had to climb over a wall in the village when a woman refused to open the door and hand over her 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.

It was a scene often repeated across the impoverished eastern parts of the country, where sometimes chickens, ducks or turkeys are a family's most valuable possession.

Others who realized the danger, however, were seen inviting workers to collect their poultry in Dogubayazit. Tens of thousands of fowl have been culled in the latest outbreaks across Turkey so far.

If confirmed, the two young brothers and an adult who were hospitalized in the Turkish capital, Ankara, would be the first cases of H5N1 found outside the vicinity of Van.

WHO spokeswoman Maria Cheng said from Geneva that she was aware of the report of the cases in Ankara, but the WHO had not been officially informed.

"We don't have any information about cases actually in the capital,'' Cheng told The Associated Press, adding that WHO representatives were meeting with Turkish officials.

The health officials had been expected to arrive Sunday in Dogubayazit, a largely Kurdish town to the north of Van, where most of the cases have originated, but the delegation was delayed by inclement weather and heavy snow.

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

The World Health Organization is investigating whether the disease had been transmitted from human to human, Cheng has said.