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H5N1 Bird Flu Confirmed Turkish Family
Recombinomics Commentary
January 4, 2006
A 14-year-old farm boy who died after developing pneumonia-like symptoms has tested positive for bird flu, Turkey's health minister said Wednesday.
Three other members of his family also tested positive and are hospitalized, Health Minister Recep Akdag said.
The above confirmation of four cases of bird flu in one family is cause for concern. Symptoms developed within 48 hours of eating a sick bird that had died. However, infection of 4 people from one family is unusual. One child has died and two are in critical condition, indicating lethal H5N1 can be efficiently transmitted to humans.
These are the first H5N1 confirmed cases outside of Asia, although an Israeli had H5 antibodies in at least some tests. He recovered and was declared H5N1 negative, but details were not made public. Similarly, pneumonia cases were reported previously in Kazakhstan and Siberia, bit not confirmed.
The four confirmed cases in Turkey are cause for concern because 11 additional people from the same village have already been hospitalized. Moreover, dead birds in four provinces of Turkey are being tested for H5N1.
Wild bird H5N1 can recombine with H9N2 endemic to the area to create the HA polymorphism S227N, which is associated with an increased affinity for human receptors.
H5N1 in the area is evolving. Two distinct cleavage sites have been reported for H5N1 isolates in the Ukraine.
Isolation and sequencing of the H5N1 would be useful.
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