Worried Turks head to hospital for bird flu tests

A Turkish veterinary official holds a chicken as officials begin collecting poultry in Ankara. Picture / Reuters

DOGUBAYAZIT, Turkey - Turkey reported a spike in suspected bird flu cases among people across the country today as fears grew that the deadly disease was sweeping westward towards mainland Europe.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) said victims appear to have contracted the virus directly from infected birds, allaying fears it was now passing dangerously from person to person.

The Turkish authorities reported 14 people have tested positive for the deadly bird flu virus, including three children from the same family in an impoverished region of eastern Turkey who died last week.

Bird flu is known to have killed 76 people since the latest outbreak emerged in late 2003. Human cases had been confined to east Asia until the virus was identified in Turkey last week.

Worried Turks rushed to hospitals for tests for the virus, which kills more than half of those it infects.

Thirteen children were among 23 people undergoing tests for bird flu in Istanbul, a teeming city of 12 million which is the country's commercial hub and the gateway to Europe from Asia.

Experts fear the deadly H5N1 strain will mutate just enough to allow it to pass easily from person to person. If it does so, it could cause a catastrophic pandemic, killing tens of millions of people, because humans lack immunity to it.

However, a WHO team visiting Dogubayazit, the home village of the dead children, said the evidence there pointed to infection from disased chickens.

"At the moment there is no element in this village indicating human-to-human transmission. It's typically similar to what we have seen so far (in Asia)," Guenael Rodier, heading the WHO's mission to Turkey and a specialist on communicable diseases, told Reuters Television.

The WHO has confirmed only four cases in Turkey, including two deaths. The WHO said other cases reported by Turkey have so far not been verified by laboratory tests.

In a sign that the disease remains dangerous in southeast Asia, Indonesia said local tests showed a 39-year-old man had died from the virus earlier this month after contact with dead chickens. It would be the 12th death in Indonesia.

Turkey has said it is treating human cases in three broad areas, including three victims from the area around the capital Ankara, about 400 km east of Istanbul.

The other victims are in the Black Sea areas in the north and the east where the deaths were reported last week.

"The total number of cases in our country is 14 confirmed by laboratory tests, and out of those 14, three children have died," Turkey's Health Minister Recep Akdag told a news conference.

Speaking in the village of Dogubayazit where the three dead children came from, he appealed to people to stay away from poultry, and to keep their children away from the birds too.

The six-year-old brother of the dead children was discharged from hospital on Monday after being confirmed as free of the disease, Turkish television reported.

Twenty-three people in the Istanbul area are at various hospitals in the city amid fears they have bird flu, Istanbul governor Muammer Guler said.

"(But) nobody has been confirmed as having bird flu in Istanbul," he told a news conference. He said 13 of the 23 hospitalised were children.

If any of the tests are positive, it would mark the first time that human cases of a disease that originated in China and southeast Asia have been reported so far west.

The spread of the disease among humans risks hurting the Turkish economy. Russia told its citizens on Sunday to avoid travelling to Turkey, a popular destination for Russians.

- REUTERS