Lethal bird flu virus returns to Turkey, four children tested

[bluemoon24]

Tests on samples from dead chicken in the village of Bogazkoy in the mainly Kurdish southeastern province of Batman, where bird flu in poultry was confirmed Thursday, determined that the virus was of the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain, the agriculture ministry said.



The samples, tested at an Ankara laboratory, will be sent to a World Health Organization laboratory in Britain for confirmation, ministry spokesman Osman Bengi told AFP.



Experts, meanwhile, were conducting precautionary tests on four children from Bogazkoy, aged between 18 months and 15 years, even though there was no immediate indication that they might have contracted the disease.



The eldest child was in close contact with dead and sick birds, but has so far shown no symptoms of the disease, the health ministry said.



The other three children showed symptoms of respiratory tract infection, but have not been in close contact with birds.



"The patients are in good general shape. There has been no one so far diagnosed with bird flu," the statement said.



Batman Governor Haluk Imga said the children displayed "no indication so far typical of the progress of the bird flu disease."



A major bird flu outbreak in Turkey claimed the lives of four teenagers in January 2006 in a remote region near the border with Iran, from where the virus quickly spread to more than a half of the country's 81 provinces.



Turkey's east and southeast are the country's poorest regions, where people are traditionally in close contact with poultry as backyard breeding is often their only source of livelihood.



A quarantine zone was imposed within a 10 kilometer (6.2 miles)-radius around Bogazkoy, where 170 birds died, including two other villages nearby, the agriculture ministry said.



All poultry in Bogazkoy -- altogether some 900 chickens, turkeys and ducks -- were slaughtered, officials said. Culling was also under way in the other two villages.



No trace of the virus has been found in provinces neighboring Batman.



The authorities were informed of chicken deaths in Bogazkoy on Monday. The virus is believed to have been brought into the area by migratory birds.



A nationwide action plan of measures to prevent the possible spread of the virus was activated amid renewed warnings to people not to keep poultry outdoors.



"We are taking measures according to the worst-case scenario. If people abide by the rules, neither humans nor animals will be harmed," Agriculture Minister Mehdi Eker said in Bogazkoy, where he flew Friday to personally oversee the implementation of the measures, Anatolia news agency reported.



The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization, the European Union and neighboring countries have been notified about the outbreak.



Prior to this week's outbreak, bird flu had been eliminated in Turkey since the last recorded case on March 31, the agriculture ministry said. More than 2.5 million birds were culled across the country during last year's outbreak.



The four teenagers who succumbed to the disease -- three siblings and their cousin -- became the first human casualties of the H5N1 strain outside Southeast Asia and China.



Eight other people confirmed as H5N1 carriers by the WHO recovered after treatment.



Kaynak: SağlıkHaber