Some 764,000 poultry have been culled in Turkey to fight bird flu, the National Coordination Center for Bird Flu said on Monday.

The center said bird flu has been detected in 13 provinces and there are suspected bird flu cases in another 16 provinces.

The first bird flu case was reported in Aralik town of eastern Igdir province on Dec. 26, 2005. The disease is also seen in cities of Igdir, Erzurum, Sanliurfa, Erzincan, Agri, Bitlis, Yozgat, Ankara, Bursa, Istanbul, Van, Aydin and Kars, the center said.

There is "risk" of bird flu in provinces of Mus, Ardahan, Izmir, Isparta, Konya, Karaman, Siirt, Karabuk, Sivas, Bayburt, Elazig, Diyarbakir, Eskisehir, Mugla, Batman and Malatya, the center added.

Meanwhile, Muhammed Ozcan, 5, who is being treated at the 100th Year Hospital in the eastern Van province, was tested positive for the H5N1 strain of bird flu, raising to 19 the number of people who contracted the killer virus in Turkey, including three who have died, the center said.

Muhammed Ozcan's 12-year-old sister Fatma died on Sunday in the same hospital of symptoms of bird flu.

Though preliminary tests showed Fatma Ozcan was negative for the H5N1 strain, laboratory tests have yet to confirm whether the girl had actually been infected.

The two children were from the same region of Dogubeyazit, where three siblings died of the bird flu virus less than two weeks ago.

Doctors said the two children had been in contact with infected chickens and were brought to hospital six days after they began showing the first symptoms.

According to the World Health Organization, anti-bird flu drugs work best if given in the first 48 hours after the onset of symptoms.

Bird flu cases in poultry and suspected cases in people began turning up in towns and villages hundreds of miles apart, in every section of the country except the west.

Source: Xinhua