DOGUBAYAZIT, Turkey – The European Union said Saturday that lab tests confirmed that an outbreak of bird flu in poultry in Turkey was the deadly H5N1 strain, but tests were ongoing to determine whether the same strain killed two teenage siblings earlier this week.
World Health Organization officials said scientists were closing in on identifying the virus that killed a 15-year-old girl and her 14-year-old brother in eastern Turkey.
“If it’s confirmed, these would be the first human cases outside China and Southeast Asia,” WHO spokeswoman Christine McNab said Friday.
The teenagers’ 11-year-old sister died Friday of suspected bird flu. A fourth sibling, a 6-year-old boy, was hospitalized.
Preliminary tests in Turkey indicated the two teenagers died of H5N1. Scientists examining samples at a laboratory in Britain already have confirmed that the virus is in the H5 family and appear to be close to determining if it is the H5N1 strain, McNab said.
The teenagers’ doctor said they probably contracted the illness by playing with dead chickens.
The strain has killed more than 70 people in East Asia since 2003. Authorities are closely monitoring H5N1 for fear it could mutate into a form easily passed among humans and spark a pandemic.
Birds in Turkey, Romania, Russia and Croatia also have recently tested positive for H5N1.
Turkish Health Minister Recep Akdag said Saturday there was no reason to suspect person-to-person transmission in his country.
“There is no indication to suggest that we are facing a virus that spreads from human to human,” he said.
Akdag was scheduled to travel to the affected region with a delegation from WHO, the EU and the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control.
A senior Turkish health ministry official said Saturday that two other people – patients at a hospital in the city of Van – had also tested positive for bird flu, according to preliminary test results.
He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. The two included a child reported to be in serious condition.
Turkey’s number of suspected bird flu cases – people with flu-like symptoms who had recently been in contact with fowl – reached at least 32 Saturday. At least 20 people were hospitalized in Van.
Five people were hospitalized in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir and seven relatives were admitted to an Istanbul hospital.
Akdag said none of the cases outside of Van appeared to be “probable” or “strongly probable” bird flu cases.
In a village on the outskirts of the hometown of the children who succumbed to bird flu, residents gathered outside an Agriculture Ministry building to complain that no one had come to cull their fowl.
“We have sick chickens, we can’t touch them,” village administrator Hasan Celik said. “No one is coming.”
Iran took measures to prevent the disease from spreading into the country, closing down the Gurbulak border gate, some 25 miles from the dead teenagers’ hometown, to private citizens except for Turks and Iranians wanting to return to their own countries. Officials disinfected trucks going into Iran.
Hunting of all birds was banned until further notice across the country.
On Friday, authorities detected bird flu in two wild ducks near the capital, Ankara.
The virus likely is being spread by migratory birds such as ducks that can easily mix with domestic fowl. Bird experts suggested that migratory birds would eventually travel further south when the weather gets colder in Turkey.
Associated Press reporters Selcan Hacaoglu and Suzan Fraser in Ankara contributed to this report.
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