2 siblings die from bird flu in Turkey

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2 siblings die from bird flu in Turkey

By beth Rosenthal International Herald Tribune

THURSDAY, JANUARY 5, 2006

ROME Two siblings who lived on a farm in rural Turkey have died of

avian influenza, health authorities there said Thursday, making them

the first human victims of the disease outside of China and Southeast

Asia.

Both children had close contact with sick poultry, the route by which

virtually all human victims have become infected with the virus.

About 140 people in Asia, where the dreaded H5N1 bird flu virus was

first detected, have been stricken. About half of them have died.

The discovery of human bird flu cases near Europe, while distressing,

was not surprising, international health officials said. Every

country that has has experienced a large-scale avian influenza

outbreak in birds has also had a handful of human victims. Despite

today's worrisome developments, the risk to the general population is

negligible, officials said.

" What's happened here is what we have already seen in Asia, " said

McNab, a spokesperson for the World Health Organization in

Geneva. " These children were infected by infected poultry, so it

doesn't change our assessment of risk for the general population in

Europe. "

Turkey recorded its first outbreaks of H5N1 in domestic poultry this

fall, when the virus brought into the country by birds migrating from

Central Asia. Over the past year, the virus has skipped from

Southeast Asia, where it first emerged around five years ago, to

western China, Russia, Ukraine and, this fall, to southeastern Europe.

Although testing in Turkey has revealed that the children died from

an avian influenza virus, it has not yet been confirmed that they

succumbed to the virulent H5N1 strain, although " everything points to

that conclusion, " McNab said.

A WHO team from Copenhagen was scheduled to be dispatched to Turkey

on Thursday to help the local authorities learn more about the cases,

and samples from the deceased children are on their way to England

for further testing.

In recent months, there have been a number of outbreaks of bird flu

in poultry in Turkey, including confirmed and suspected outbreaks in

provinces adjacent to where the children lived, in Agri Province,

near the Iranian border.

Fatma Kocyigit, 15, and her 14-year-old brother, Mehmet Ali Kocyigit,

from the city of Van, both died of pneumonia caused by avian

influenza in the past four days, according to the Turkish Anatolia

news agency. Their 11-year-old sister, Hulya, and some neighbors have

been hospitalized, the news agency said.

All of the children were involved in caring for poultry, although

there are no officially reported outbreaks in the village where they

live.

" We're facing an important problem, " said Agriculture Minister Mehdi

Eker, at a news conference before heading to Van. " We should calmly

take all measures required by science and medicine and implement them

without panic. "

While the lethal H5N1 strain of bird flu virus does not, at the

moment, readily infect humans or pass from person to person,

international health authorities worry that it might acquire those

capabilities through a naturally occurring process in which flu

viruses exchange genes. Should it acquire that capability, H5N1 has

the potential to set off a devastating influenza pandemic and kill

millions.

The more people who are infected with H5N1, the more the

opportunities for dangerous gene mixing to occur. If a person were

simultaneously infected with the H5N1 virus, the normal seasonal

influenza virus in his body would become an perfect crucible for gene

exchange, potentially creating an easily transmissible human H5N1

virus.

The vast majority of bird flu cases, both in animals and humans, have

been found in Asia, particularly Vietnam and China. China has

recently decided to vaccinate its entire poultry stock against the

disease after experiencing more than 20 outbreaks this year.

This fall, birds in Turkey, Romania and Croatia tested positive for

the disease, its first appearance in Europe. But detection and

reporting from the rural counties where bird flu most often occurs is

often haphazard, leaving international health authorities uncertain

about the extent of the problem.

For example, there have been no official reports of bird flu in

poultry in the province where the children live, although it is

almost certainly occurring there. The last reported outbreak in

Turkey was on Dec. 27 when health authorities in neighboring Igdir

Province notified the World Organization for Animal Health in Paris

that 1,200 chickens, ducks, geese and turkeys in the village of

Kopruler had died of avian influenza.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/01/05/news/flu.php