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Second Turkish teen dies from bird flu
(AP)
Updated: 2006-01-05 21:06
A Turkish teenager whose brother died of bird flu also succumbed to the
disease Thursday, a Turkish doctor said, as authorities tried to determine if
the siblings had contracted the worrisome H5N1 strain of the virus.
If so, the brother and sister would be the first people to die outside
eastern Asia in the latest outbreak of the H5N1 strain. Preliminary tests in
Turkey indicated they had the strain, and samples were being sent to a British
lab for confirmation.
A senior World Health Organization official said the results of two tests in
the brother's case were probably correct.
"It's unlikely we're dealing with false positives," said Guenael Rodier, a
special adviser on communicable diseases at WHO's offices in Copenhagen,
Denmark. "There's no reason to believe it's wrong."
Fatma Kocyigit, 15, died in a hospital in the eastern
city of Van, four days after the death of her 14-year-old brother, Mehmet Ali
Kocyigit, the Anatolia new agency reported, citing Ahmet Faik Oner, the doctor
who treated the siblings. Doctors suspect their 11-year-old sister also has bird
flu and are awaiting the results of tests to confirm that.
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