Turkey has culled 1.28 million fowl in a bid to prevent bird flu spread in the country, Turkish National Coordination Center for Bird Flu said on Monday.

A statement issued by the center said that the bird flu was detected in 16 provinces including Ankara and Istanbul.

Twenty-one people have been infected with bird flu in Turkey, including four teenagers who have died of the H5N1 strain of bird flu this year.

Experts fear that the disease, which currently jumps from birds to humans, might mutate into a form that can easily transmit among humans, which would lead to a global pandemic.

Source: Xinhua