Bird Flu Reaches Istanbul

09/01/2006| IslamWeb

Twenty-one people in the Istanbul area have been hospitalised with suspected bird flu, raising concerns the deadly disease has spread to Turkey's commercial hub of 12 million people.

Health authorities expect to receive test results on the 21 on Monday, the Milliyet daily said.

Mehmet Bakar, Istanbul's deputy health director, said initial tests on two dead chickens in the Kucukcekmece district indicated that they were infected by the bird flu virus, the reports said.

A third test was being carried out to confirm the diagnosis.

"Twenty-one people under suspicion [of having bird flu] have been kept in hospital under observation. Samples have been taken from these people and sent to the laboratory for examination," Bakar was quoted as saying by the Star newspaper.

The first case of the virus jumping from birds to humans outside China and Southeast Asia occurred last week in rural eastern Turkey, where three children from the same family died, two of them confirmed to have contracted the H5N1 bird flu strain and the third suspected to have also succumbed to it.

PHOTO CAPTION

A hen is pictured in Telceker village of Dogubeyazit, eastern Turkey. (AFP)