Turks urged to avoid contact with fowl
Authorities have urged citizens to avoid contact with fowl today, as Turkey reported a 15th person had tested positive for the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu.
Imams issued warnings about the deadly virus through minaret loudspeakers, and authorities distributed leaflets urging people to avoid fowl.
The Agriculture Ministry said 306,000 fowl – some infected, some not – had been destroyed as a precaution to combat the spread of the disease.
Preliminary tests today showed another person tested positive for the H5N1 strain, bringing the number of suspected and confirmed cases up to 15, a Health Ministry official said.
The ministry had given the toll as 15 yesterday, but today said one of those earlier cases had not been validated.
Two of those patients have died from the disease over the past week.
Health officials said today that most of the 70 or so people in hospital with flu-like symptoms across Turkey had tested negative for bird flu.
The United Nations’ health agency so far has confirmed only four of the 15 reported cases as H5N1, but warned Monday that each new human case increased the virus’ chances of mutating into a form that could easily pass from human to human and spark a pandemic.
Outbreaks among birds also worry experts, as they also afford the virus opportunities to mutate.
UN and Turkish authorities urged citizens to prevent children from coming into contact with dead birds.
Many of the 15 cases, including the two deaths, involve children who were infected directly by sick birds.
Authorities distributed leaflets in eastern regions, most affected by the bird flu outbreak, cautioning people not to touch the fowl, while televisions urged people to wash hands after contact with poultry.
Imams also issued warnings through blaring mosque loudspeakers in the western town of Yesilova in Burdur province, the Anatolia news agency reported.
The WHO has confirmed only four of the cases as H5N1, pending verification of the other cases by WHO labs.
The newest cases reported today – a woman in the central Anatolian city of Sivas – tested positive for H5N1 in Turkish lab tests, which the WHO had yet to confirm, the Health Ministry official said.
Gulsen Yesilirmak said from her hospital bed in Sivas that she felt sick after throwing out dead chickens from a coop, according to private CNN-Turk television footage.
“I threw out one, and another died and I threw out that, too. Then I got sick … I sat down exhausted, and I had a headache,” Yesilirmak said, struggling to breathe behind a protective mask. Her eyes were red.
Doctors were also monitoring her two children at the hospital as a precaution, CNN-Turk said.
Meanwhile, more than a dozen people were admitted to hospitals across Turkey with flu-like symptoms today, including four in the western town of Aydin, where the virus in fowl was detected a day earlier in Kusadasi, an Aegean resort town just across from the Greek island of Samos.
Authorities today detected bird flu in dead birds near the Aegean port city of Izmir, CNN-Turk reported.
Workers continued culling birds across the country, and had destroyed 306,000, the Agriculture Ministry said.
About 3,000 birds were killed in Istanbul, reports said.
Authorities have banned the sale of fowl in open markets and even the sale of eggs in some areas.
The outbreaks have been occurring in Turkey because of close interaction here between humans and animals, which must be minimised, said Guenael Rodier, a senior World Health Organisation official for communicable diseases who was visiting Turkey this week.
All children who have tested positive were in close contact with fowl, suggesting they were likely infected directly by the birds, WHO officials said.
Two siblings died last week in the eastern city of Van – the first confirmed bird flu fatalities outside eastern Asia, where 74 people have been killed by H5N1 since 2003.
A third sibling also died in Van, but Turkish labs could not determine whether she was positive for H5N1, and a WHO lab has yet to release results of its own test.
A doctor in Van said the siblings likely had been infected while playing with the heads of dead chickens. Several other children had similar stories.
Health Minister Recep Akdag said he was confident Turkey would overcome the outbreak, but warned the country would continue to be at risk for years because it lies on a major path for migratory birds.
