TURKEY: Turkey's bird flu crisis intensified yesterday with at least 14 people testing positive for the lethal H5N1 strain of the disease as it continues its drift westwards towards mainland Europe.
More than 60 people with flu-like symptoms who had come into contact with fowl were in hospital yesterday for tests, officials said. Three cases were reported at the weekend in the Turkish capital Ankara and others confirmed in four Turkish provinces.
The first confirmed victims of the disease outside east Asia lived in the poor Kurdish frontier town of Dogubayazit. Three of Zeki Kocyigit's children died in hospital in Van, a two and a half hour drive across the bleak, snowy mountains. Their deaths marked the beginning of a seemingly ominous trend across Turkey.
Last night Mr Kocyigit said he had no idea bird flu had arrived at his home - a small four-room building with no running water and an outside toilet, perched on a hill overlooking the snow-encrusted town.
"There are many black birds that arrive at our lake from elsewhere," he said. He gave thanks for the fact that his surviving child, Ali Hasan (6), had been discharged from hospital after apparently recovering from the illness. The boy arrived home last night to be greeted by wellwishers who had turned up in Mr Kocyigit's front yard.
Standing in thick snow outside his house yesterday, Mr Kocyigit pointed to the shed-like coop where he had kept his chickens. "We've always liked chickens. I had eight of them. My family liked them too," he said, showing off the area where the birds had sheltered during the freezing winter nights. He added: "And then they fell ill. Shortly after that my children started feeling poorly too."
His eldest son Mehmet Ali (14) had slaughtered one of the ill chickens, a job in this remote eastern region of Turkey traditionally reserved for older children. "We ate the sick chickens and fed them to my wife's sister's family as well," Mr Kocyigit said.
Soon afterwards, all four children - Fatma (15), Mehmet Ali, Hulya (11) and Ali Hasan - developed temperatures and cold-like symptoms, he said.
"I took my son to the local medical clinic. They said he had a cold, gave him an infusion, and sent him home. All the children developed high temperatures. I took them back three days later and explained about the chickens. They realised something was badly wrong."
So far all the people in hospital appear to have worked closely with poultry - in a region where ducks and geese roam the streets, and where many children keep pigeons as a hobby.
But yesterday doctors said they feared the virus adapting so it could move from human to human, raising the possibility of a pandemic.
Ten people earlier had tested positive for H5N1 in Turkish labs, four of which have been confirmed by the World Health Organisation (WHO). "It's clear that the virus is well-established in the region. The frontline between children and animals, particularly backyard poultry, is too large," WHO official Guenael Rodier said.
Teams of health ministry officials are already in Dogubayazit culling chickens - some 17,500 had been killed by yesterday. But with many impoverished Kurdish householders refusing to give up their birds, plenty are eluding cull. Turkey's health minister Recep Akdag urged people to give up their centuries-old habit of raising poultry in their backyards.
As Mr Kocyigit waited for his son to return from the hospital, other villagers complained about the primitive medical facilities in the town and the lack of doctors. A group of locals demonstrated at the health ministry building yesterday, shouting: "Send us more doctors now."
For Mr Kocyigit, though, last night was a time for reflection. "God protected my last son," he said. "God cared about him. If people will help us, we will send him to school to be educated. I would like my son to grow up to be an educated man." - (Guardian service)