Suspect Bird Flu Cases Hospitalized in Turkey
Recombinomics Commentary
February 9, 2007
A fourth child with flu symptoms has been hospitalized as a precaution after an outbreak of bird flu in a village in southeastern Turkey, officials said Friday.
The four children, between the ages of 1 and 16, reportedly came in contact with sick fowl in the village of Bogazkoy, where 170 domestic fowl died of bird flu. Three of the children had already been hospitalized on Thursday.
Tests were under way to determine whether the birds died of the H5N1 strain of bird flu and whether the children caught the virus.
The above comments describe four hospitalized children near the bird flu outbreak in Turkey. Although H5N1 has not yet been confirmed, the poultry deaths coupled with quarantine of three villages suggests initial data point toward H5N1.
Last season H5N1 was widespread in Turkey, and this season H5N1 has recently been reported in Hungary, Pakistan, UK, and Egypt, suggesting H5N1 is again widespread in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
Recently there were also pneumonia fatalities in the village of Karlica in the district of Tekman-Erzurum, which is about 100 miles from the confirmed bird flu outbreak in poultry. Although bird flu in the children has been denied, initial testing last year of the H5N1 infected children in eastern Turkey was also negative for bird flu. H5N1 was not detected until lung samples were tested, and the recent fatalities were not autopsied.
The bird flu outbreak in eastern Turkey, couple with pneumonia fatalities and additional hospitalizations remain a cause for concern.
Media sources
Phylogenetic Trees