Turkish girl dies, brother critically ill

VAN, Turkey: A Turkish girl died yesterday from suspected bird flu, while her brother was critically ill in hospital after testing positive for the virus.

Although the Health Ministry said initial tests on Fatma Ozcan had proved negative, doctors still suspect she contracted the deadly disease. If both siblings are confirmed to have the disease, it would bring the number of human cases in Turkey to 20.

The ministry said tests on her brother Muhammet, five, showed he has the H5N1 strain of avian influenza, which has already killed three other children in Dogubayazit, the same town in eastern Van province that the Ozcan family come from.

Several tests are required to establish whether a patient has H5N1. One of the children who died last week initially tested negative.

"The girl who was under treatment in Van, Fatma Ozcan, died today of lung failure. She couldn't be saved," the Health Ministry said in a statement. "The first laboratory tests ... came out negative for bird flu but tests continue." It added: "Her brother who was in the same hospital ... came out positive today."

Separately, Van University Hospital doctor Huseyin Avni Sahin told reporters: "Fatma Ozcan died today from suspected avian influenza, she came from Dogubayazit five days ago."

Sahin said Fatma, 12, was initially taken to a hospital in Dogubayazit after developing a fever and a cough after preparing and chicken with her family. She was later taken to Van.

Dozens of people have been hospitalized with flu-like symptoms across Turkey, including two children in Istanbul, on the doorstep of Europe.

Health officials have said that all 19 people with confirmed H5N1 infection including three children who died last week in eastern Turkey apparently had touched or played with birds, and that there was no evidence of person-to-person infection.

Two of the 19 have been discharged from hospital and the World Health Organization (WHO) is examining the cases closely as it tracks how the virus may be changing and tries to determine whether the strain may not always be as lethal as earlier believed.

The three fatalities were the first known deaths from the virus outside of Asia, where at least 77 have been killed by bird flu since 2003. The WHO said on Friday that a 29-year-old Indonesian woman who died this week had tested positive for bird flu, bringing its toll worldwide to at least 79 people. WHO has so far only confirmed two out of the three deaths in Turkey were from the H5N1 strain.

Source: China Daily