Newest Threat in Iraq: Bird Flu Death Confirmed

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Newest Threat in Iraq: Bird Flu Death Confirmed

Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit

[Just when you thought things couldn't possibly get any worse in Iraq...
guess again. Now there's Bird Flu, the first case in the Middle East.
Perhaps Mayor Nagin was right -- God is definitely angry at Mr. Bush.]

AP via Yahoo - Jan 30, 2006
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060130/ap_on_he_me/iraq_bird_flu


First Bird Flu Death Confirmed in Iraq

By YAHYA BARZANJI
Associated Press Writer

RANIYA, Iraq - Battered by rampant violence and political instability, a new
threat in Iraq was confirmed Monday -- the first case of the deadly bird flu
virus in the Middle East.

A 15-year-old Kurdish girl who died this month had the deadly H5N1 strain,
Iraq and U.N. health officials said. The discovery prompted a large-scale
slaughter of domestic birds in the northern area where the teen died as the
World Health Organization formed an emergency team to try to contain the
disease's spread.

"We regretfully announce that the first case of bird flu has appeared in
Iraq," Iraqi Health Minister Abdel Mutalib Mohammed told reporters.

World Health Organization officials confirmed the finding, though it was not
immediately clear how the girl, Shangen Abdul Qader, who died Jan. 17 in the
northern Kurdish town of Raniya, contracted the disease.

The prospect of a bird flu outbreak in Iraq is alarming because the country
is gripped by armed insurgency and lacks the resources of other governments
in the region. Government institutions, however, are most effective in the
Kurdish-run area where the girl lived.

Health teams cordoned off areas in and around Raniya on Monday and began
Iraq's first bird slaughter.

Policeman Khalil Khudur said he led a team that killed 3,000 birds, mainly
chickens and ducks, in Sarkathan, a village of about 600 homes four miles
north of Raniya. Villagers and cars were also sprayed with chemicals to kill
any trace of the disease.

But there were fears they might be too late.

Health officials are investigating the death of the girl's uncle, Hamasour
Mustapha, 50, on Friday after showing symptoms similar to bird flu. At least
two other people have been admitted to a hospital in Sulaimaniyah, 160 miles
northeast of Baghdad, with similar symptoms. Another 30 samples from
northern Iraq are also being tested for bird flu.

WHO is readying an emergency team to carry out epidemiological tests and
examine Iraqis exhibiting bird flu-like symptoms, spokesman *** Thompson
said.

President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, was briefed on efforts to protect Iraqis
from the disease, according to al-Iraqiya TV which aired footage of the
talks.

Abdul Qader and her uncle lived in the same house in Raniya, about 60 miles
south of the Turkish border and 15 miles west of Iran.

Health officials do not yet know how the girl contracted the virus, but just
north of Raniya is a reservoir used as a stopover by migratory birds from
Turkey, where at least 21 cases of H5N1 have been recorded.

The disease has not proved as deadly in Turkey as in East Asia -- where more
than half of those infected have died -- but U.N. experts warned that does
not mean the virus was becoming less dangerous.

Still, the risk of the virus spreading may not increase unless there are big
clusters of cases in Turkey or other countries, indicating that the strain
has become more virulent, said Angus Nicoll, of the European Center for
Disease Control and Prevention.

"Clusters (are) what we are looking for, and we haven't seen that in
Turkey," Nicoll said.

Experts fear the virus could mutate into a form spread easily among humans,
triggering a pandemic capable of killing millions. So far, most human cases
have been traced to contact with birds. A total of 85 people had died of the
disease worldwide before the Iraq case was reported, according to WHO
figures.

"It is always worrying to have a new case in a new country because it raises
concerns among the public," Thompson said. "But we have to understand that
so far this is just one case."

The girl's mother rejected the bird flu findings, but acknowledged that a
number of her chickens had mysteriously died before her daughter's death.

"My daughter did not die from bird flu," Fatima Abdullah, 50, told The
Associated Press. "She did not like chickens nor had anything to do with
them. She did not take care of these birds."

Turkish authorities said Monday the H5N1 virus in birds had been detected in
31 of Turkey's 81 provinces. Close to 1.6 million fowl had been culled so
far.

Health experts said controlling such an outbreak and undertaking a mass bird
cull in Iraq would be difficult due the country's more limited veterinary
and monitoring infrastructure.

"If an outbreak of avian influenza were to be proven, there would be a lot
of support needed," said Maria Zampaglione, spokeswoman at the Paris-based
World Organization for Animal Health.

Kurdistan Health Ministry official Najimuldin Hassan said thousands of
domesticated birds are expected to be killed, but authorities did not know
how to kill migratory birds nor were equipped to do so. Khudur, the
policeman conducting the cull in Sarkathan, complained that his team was
also not properly equipped to safely conduct the slaughter.

"We lack plastic boots, masks and gloves. If we tear the gloves on our
hands, there are none to replace them," he said.

A top U.N. official pinpointed the issue -- and its financial implications
on cash-strapped Iraqi villagers and farmers -- as the gravest one facing
authorities.

"The problem comes down to funding more than anything else," Rod Kennard,
who manages the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization's assistance program
for Iraq, said from neighboring Jordan.

"If they have enough money in order to pay people off so that people will
not be reluctant to cull their birds, it's less of an issue."

It could take up to three weeks to find out how the virus entered Iraq and
how it would be contained, WHO spokesman Thompson said.

***

Reuters via yahoo - Jan 30, 2006
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060130/wl_nm/birdflu_iraq_dc

Iraq says dead teenager had bird flu

By Twana Osman

SULAIMANIYA, Iraq (Reuters) - A 14-year-old girl who died in northern Iraq
this month had bird flu, Iraq's health minister said on Monday, despite the
World Health Organization having initially discounted the virus as the cause
of death.

A WHO official said preliminary results from a U.S. military laboratory in
Cairo showed the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus, but it was urgently seeking
further tests at a British laboratory.

If confirmed it would be the first known human case of the avian virus in
Iraq, whose northern provinces border Turkey, where more than 20 people have
already been diagnosed with H5N1.

The girl died on January 17 and her uncle died last Friday, also suffering
from respiratory problems. Samples from him have been also sent to Britain
for testing.

Iraq is investigating a possible third human case in the same part of
northern Iraq, the WHO said. The patient was a 54-year-old woman who was
taken to hospital with respiratory problems on January 18 and is still being
treated, a spokesman at WHO headquarters in Geneva said.

"In Iraq the authorities will move as if it is confirmed ... A mission from
the WHO will travel to Iraq to assess the situation," said Zuhair Halaj,
head of communicable diseases at the WHO office in Cairo.

So far there are no confirmed cases among poultry in Iraq, but the WHO says
the emergence now of possible human victims underlines the need for better
surveillance.

Iraq has banned poultry imports from Turkey, but officials admit the rebel
violence and anarchy that have impoverished Iraq, leaving its frontiers
porous and sanitary regulations unenforceable, will make it hard to control
an epidemic.

The health minister of Iraq's largely autonomous northern Kurdistan region,
where the girl lived, said all poultry in and around the city of Sulaimaniya
would be destroyed in a bid to prevent the spread of the virus.

MIGRATORY BIRDS

Bird flu is endemic in poultry in parts of Asia and can infect people who
come into close contact with infected birds. It has killed at least 83
people since late 2003 and recently spread to Turkey, where local officials
blame it for the death of four children.

Scientists say the H5N1 virus is mutating steadily and may eventually
acquire the changes it needs to be easily transmitted from human to human.
Because people lack any immunity to it, it could sweep the world in weeks or
months, killing millions.

Fourteen-year-old Tijan Abdel-Qader died in a hospital in Sulaimaniya two
weeks ago after being brought from her home in Raniya, close to Lake Dukan,
a magnet for many migratory birds.

"The test of Tijan's blood emphasised that she had bird flu from the kind
that kills humans," Iraqi Health Minister Abdul Muttalib Mohammed Ali told a
news briefing in Sulaimaniya.

The WHO said on January 19 the teenager did not have bird flu. A WHO
spokeswoman said at the weekend the statement had been based on tests
carried out only in Iraq.

WHO spokeswoman Maria Cheng said testing for bird flu was complex and it
would not be the first time that first diagnoses had been revised.

Doctors usually test sputum, looking for the virus in lung secretions but it
is possible to test the blood for antibodies against the virus a few days
after infection.

The WHO's Halaj said the U.S. military laboratory had "done the preliminary
test and it was H5N1 ... the next stage is another test which isolates the
virus."

IRAQIS ALARMED

News of the positive result alarmed residents of Baghdad, who feared it
would inflict further damage on their country's already battered economy.

"If there are more cases, the economy will deteriorate and our lives will be
greatly affected, because then we will have to buy other foodstuffs rather
than chicken and eggs. We ask the government to protect us," said Khalid
Obaisy, 42, a labourer.

Sa'ad Adnan, 45, the owner of the Kahramana chicken restaurant said many
people had already been put off eating chicken. "This news is going to cause
panic and chaos," he said.

(Additional reporting by Omar al-Ibadi in Baghdad, Richard Waddington in
Geneva and Amil Khan in Cairo)

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