January 14, 2006	Saturday	Zilhaj 13, 1426

ANKARA, Jan 13: Turkey raced on Friday to stem the spread of a bird flu outbreak that has killed three people and infected 15, while experts reported a mutation in the lethal strain of the virus, but ruled out any human-to-human transmission yet.

Turkish veterinary experts pressed on with the slaughter of thousands of animals to combat the potentially lethal H5N1 strain of bird flu that has rapidly spread to nearly a third of the country’s 81 provinces after emerging late last month in a remote eastern town.

The disease has hit the country’s biggest city and business hub Istanbul and the capital Ankara, where officials covered the cages of birds at the local zoo with plastic sheeting or mesh wire to prevent them from coming into contact with infected birds.

The daily Vatan reported that former president Suleyman Demirel, who lives in a townhouse in a busy, central Ankara street, had a dozen chickens he kept in his backyard exterminated as a precautionary measure.

In a bid to prevent the outbreak from hurting the tourism industry, a lucrative source of revenue for Turkey, officials advised residents and hotel owners in popular resort areas to prevent their fowl from coming into contact with holidaymakers.

On Thursday, health officials announced the country’s third death from the virus, an 11-year-old girl whose two siblings were the only other to die in Turkey so far of the bird flu, the first human casualties of the disease outside Southeast Asia and China, where it has killed nearly 80 people since 2003.

Two more patients, a four-year-old boy and a girl aged six, were identified as carriers of H5N1, bringing to 18 the total number of Turks infected, including the three who died.

Officials said both children were in good condition.

Another two of the 15 patients hospitalized for H5N1 infection, a 12-year-old boy and a nine-year-old girl, were discharged from hospital after responding positively to treatment, they said.

The World Health Organization (WHO), which sent a team to Turkey to investigate the outbreak, announced on Thursday that analysis of one of two viruses taken from two flu deaths in Turkey suggested the H5N1 strain was mutating towards a form more easily transmissible from birds to humans.

But it underlined that it was too early to say what the significance was of this mutation, already seen in Southeast Asia in previous years.

“Interpretation of the significance of this finding for human health will depend on clinical and epidemiological data now being gathered in Turkey,” the WHO said.

It said the infections in Turkey were the result of contact with sick animals and that there was no evidence to suggest human-to-human transmission had taken place.

Scientists fear that millions could die in a worldwide pandemic if the virulent virus mutates into a form that would make it communicable among humans.

At a WHO-sponsored conference in Tokyo on how to deal with a possible influenza pandemic, Asian experts stressed the need to train more health workers, build the capacities of national laboratories and expand awareness campaigns.

“All these steps will raise the possibility of containing a pandemic,” they said in a statement.

In hopes of curbing the rapid spread of the disease, Turkey’s agriculture ministry has sent leaflets to every province, informing people about the disease and how it communicates.

All national television channels are broadcasting spot warnings, urging people to stay away from poultry and wash their hands if they come into contact with fowl.

The popular mass selling daily Sabah appeared Friday with a glossy 16-page free color supplement entitled: “Bird flu - 50 questions on how to protect yourself from the deadly virus.”

Turkish Agriculture Minister Mehdi Eker on Thursday blamed free-range poultry in rural areas and city outskirts “an important risk factor” in the spread of the virus.

He said the deadly strain had so far been identified in poultry in 11 provinces, with suspected outbreaks in 14 others, and that vets had culled some 355,000 animals. —AFP