Fowl Play in Turkey: Bird Flu Takes Flight

Bird flu spreads across Turkey

ANKARA, Turkey (CNN) -- Preliminary tests showed five more people have been
infected with the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu virus in Turkey, a Health
Ministry official said Monday.

Three reported cases were in the capital, Ankara while two were in the
eastern city of Van. The new cases raise the number of suspected and
confirmed cases in Turkey to 15.

Cases in Van had been reported previously. The new cases in Ankara suggested
the illness could be spreading.

Samples have been sent to a British lab to determine if the avian flu is
being spread bird-to-human or human-to-human.

Health authorities believe the virus could one day mutate and spread
directly among the human population rather than from birds to people.

The figures announced by Turkish health officials went beyond those provided
by the World Health Organization, which said Saturday that two new cases of
H5N1 avian influenza virus had been confirmed in children in hospital, aged
five and eight years, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to four.

Last week three people died in Turkey from the H5N1 strain of the bird flu.
The deaths from that virus were the first outside China and Southeast Asia.

All three of dead were siblings. A fourth child in the family, a 6-year-old
boy, was also hospitalized. His condition was improving and he might be
released Monday, doctors said.

WHO's top official for the disease told CNN on Saturday that it was
investigating the suspected cases. But Dr. David Nabarro cautioned that the
reports did not portend a pandemic, since the fatalities occurred among
people known to have been in contact with birds.

"There's a serious need for people to steer clear of diseased birds," he
said, noting that "all evidence indicates" those infected had been in close
contact with diseased birds.

"Contact between people and poultry has likely increased during the present
cold weather, when the custom among many rural households is to bring
poultry into their homes," WHO said Saturday. "Tests have shown that the
virus can survive in bird feces for at least 35 days at low temperatures."

A WHO spokesman, Dr. Guenael Rodier, urged Turks Sunday in Van to follow
standard recommendations for avoiding the illness -- that is to say,
"primarily to avoid contact with live birds or dead birds in the affected
area."

He said the country's health officials -- at their highest level -- were
"very much engaged" in the issue and praised the country's minister of
health and minister of agriculture for their cooperation.

"The problem is local, but it's also global," Rodier said, noting that
public health officials are concerned that the virus -- which was first
identified in 1997 in Hong Kong -- may mutate so that it gains the ability
to spread easily from person to person. That could trigger a pandemic with
disastrous consequences.

Rodier said there was no reason to impose restrictions on travel to Turkey.

But Russia's chief epidemiologist has urged his countrymen not to travel to
Turkey -- a popular vacation destination for Russians -- because of the bird
flu outbreak, the Interfax news agency reported Sunday.

Birds in Turkey, Romania, Russia and Croatia have recently tested positive
for H5N1.

Despite the deaths, workers in the village of Dogubayazit, where the
siblings lived, still had trouble Sunday persuading some villagers to hand
over their fowl for destruction, The Associated Press reported.

Health officials believe the best way to fight the spread of bird flu is the
wholesale slaughter and destruction of poultry in the affected area.

But across the impoverished eastern parts of the country, sometimes chickens
are a family's most valuable possession.


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