Turkish bird-flu patient improves
A four-year-old boy – one of 21 people infected with the deadly strain of bird flu – has recovered and was discharged from hospital while another boy listed as critical was showing improvement, Turkish doctors and officials said today.
As the government moved to control the outbreak in poultry by culling fowl and as a government education program relaying the message to avoid contact with sick birds began to kick in, experts said they expected fewer cases of human infections to emerge.
“The situation is getting better,” said World Health Organisation spokeswoman Cristiana Salvi, though warning that it was too early to say the crisis was over.
“We can expect a few more cases” of infection, she said.
“A lot of effort is being put into controlling the outbreak in animals, but it takes time,” Salvi said.
“The educational programme … helps decrease the number of cases,” she added.
Most of the cases in Turkey involved children aged between four and 18. Turkey has destroyed about one million fowl in an attempt to limit contact with humans in this largely rural country, where most villagers raise their own chickens, turkeys and geese.
Experts fear the virus could mutate into a form spread easily among humans, triggering a pandemic capable of killing millions. The virus has jumped from poultry to people, killing at least 79 people in east Asia and Turkey since 2003.
The WHO has stressed it has no evidence of person-to-person infection in Turkey, where H5N1 has killed four children so far.
The latest victim confirmed to have the deadly strain was five-year-old Muhammet Ozcan, who lost his sister to the disease on Sunday.
He was reported to be in a critical condition for two days, but doctors at the hospital in the eastern city of Van – near the border with Iran – said his condition had improved. The boy is battling an infection that has spread in his lungs.
“He will probably recover,” said Dr Aydin Deveci.
Yesterday, four-year-old Selami Bas, who also tested positive for H5N1, was discharged from a hospital in the south-eastern province Sanliurfa, Governor Yusuf Yavascan said. The boy was admitted to hospital 10 days ago and became ill after coming into contact with chickens.
Meanwhile, the health ministry said there was no evidence that an 11-year-old girl who died yesterday while being transferred from one hospital to another had any contact with fowl, but said samples from her body were being tested for bird flu anyway.
Although some people were trying to hide their fowl, many others were willing to give up their animals – to some their livelihood – a sign that the government’s educational message was beginning to get through.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has urged people not to stop eating chicken and eggs from professional poultry farms, saying the disease had been confined to birds raised in the open in people’s gardens.
Authorities also insisted it was safe to travel to Turkey amid concerns that a prolonged crisis might also affect the country’s lucrative tourism industry.
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