Five more infected with bird flu in Turkey
(AP)
Updated: 2006-01-09 22:20

DOGUBAYAZIT, Turkey - Preliminary tests showed five more people have been infected with the deadly H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus in Turkey, a Health Ministry official said Monday. The new results raise the number of human cases in Turkey to 15. Not all have been confirmed yet by the World Health Organization.

A Turkish Agriculture Ministery employee catches chickens while collecting poultry for culling in the eastern Turkish town of Dogubayazit, Monday, Jan. 9, 2006. Preliminary tests showed five more people have been infected with the deadly H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus in Turkey, a Health Ministry official said, indicating the disease was spreading. A World Health Organization official warned Monday that the chances that the disease may mutate into a dangerous form increased with every new human infection. [AP]

A WHO official warned that the chances the disease may mutate into a dangerous form increase with every new human infection.

Turkish labs detected H5N1 in the five new cases, which were discovered in four separate provinces, according to a Health Ministry official speaking on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to speak to the media.

In addition, more than 60 people with flu-like symptoms who had come in close contact with fowl had been hospitalized around the country by Monday and were undergoing tests, officials said.

"The more humans infected with the avian virus, the more chance it has to adapt," Guenael R.M. Rodier, a senior WHO official for communicable diseases, said during a visit to Dogubayazit, a largely Kurdish town bordering Iran where three children from the same family have died.

Health officials are watching the disease's spread and development for fear it could mutate into a form easily transmitted between people and spark a pandemic. Apart from confirming the Turkish cases, WHO labs are also watching for genetic changes in the virus that could allow it to move from human to human.

The four cases confirmed so far involved people who were in close contact with fowl, suggesting they were likely infected directly by birds, health officials say.

The five newest cases came from four provinces in eastern and central Turkey, as well as the Black Sea coast, according to Health Ministry official Turan Buzgan.

Ten people earlier had tested positive for H5N1 in tests in Turkish labs, four of which have been confirmed by the WHO.

Those four include two siblings who died last week in the eastern city of Van — the first confirmed fatalities caused by the virus outside eastern Asia, where 74 people have been killed by H5N1 since 2003. A third sibling also died in Van of bird flu, but a WHO lab has not yet confirmed H5N1.

"It's clear that the virus is well established in the region," Rodier said. "The front line between children and animals, particularly backyard poultry, is too large," he said, adding that contact between poultry and people must be minimized.

On Sunday, three H5N1 cases were reported in Ankara, and two more in Van. Ankara is about 600 miles west of Van.

The cases in Ankara included two young brothers and a 65-year-old man, who tested positive for H5N1 in preliminary tests by Turkish labs.

The boys in Ankara — aged 5 and 2 — caught the virus while playing with gloves their father had used to handle two dead wild ducks outside Ankara. An 8-year-old girl hospitalized in Van with what Turkish labs showed was H5N1 apparently contracted the virus by hugging and kissing dead chickens.

On Monday, Health Minister Recep Akdag arrived in Dogubayazit, where most of the cases have originated, along with WHO officials.

"If as a community, we take the necessary measures and educate (people) we can in a short period of time combat this," Akdag said. "We will manage to slow its progress."

He said, however, that because Turkey was on the path of migratory birds, the country would continue to be at risk in years to come, and urged people to abandon raising poultry in backyards.

"The earlier we realize this, the earlier we will be rid" of bird flu.

Akdag climbed up a snowy hill to visit Zeki Kocyigit, whose three children died of the disease. As he left, villagers shouted complaints about a lack of doctors.

The doctor who treated the three children in Van said they probably contracted the illness by playing with dead chickens.

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 such as Dogubayazit, where villagers resist turning in their animals.

On Sunday, a group of Turkish workers in Dogubayazit had to climb over a wall when a woman refused to open the door and hand over her several 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.

In Istanbul, where bird flu in fowl was detected in some neighborhoods on the city's outskirts, authorities imposed a quarantine, banning the entry and exit of poultry and disinfecting people leaving the area.