Turkey confirms human bird flu cases

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/turkey-confirms-human-bird-flu-cases/2006/01/05/1136387542531.html

Turkey has confirmed two human cases of bird flu, including a teenage farm boy who died after developing pneumonia-like symptoms, the health minister says.

The 14-year-old boy's sister, who is hospitalised and in serious condition, also tested positive for bird flu, Health Minister Recep Akdag said.

A third sibling is also suspected of having bird flu, he said.
more...

I hope Turkey has a handle on it???

but every fresh case is another chance to mutate.

And no, I don't believe it is complete fear-mongering.

Keeping my fingers crossed-- MAYBE the epizootic will run its course before a pandemic human strain emerges. Of course, that will only be a postponement, but I'll take that if it delays the inevitable until cell culture flu vaccine production comes online. And better anti-virals.

I do not think we will have a delay long enough to bring new anti-virals online.

I may be a crass jerk to say this, but the herd needs a little thinning anyway. Nature always finds a way to bring overpopulation back into line.

you do realize, of course, that in the event of the pandemic the people who would be hit the worst would be folks in third-world urban clusters with inadequate medical care?

Also your first statement is speculation. We might have long enough, we might not. Birds are migrating, but you can't predict the rate of mutation based on that.

You mean every major city in the US?

I tend to speculate. Excuse me for not having hard data for you.

When it does not come to pass, I will send you a "you were right, I was wrong" note, okay?

I too am guilty of being fond of hyperbole from time to time, but with all the poverty and inadequate social services infrastructure that the US has, you cannot compare even the poorest US cities like Cleveland or Detroit to places like Guatemala City. No comparison that is not an approximate hyperbole is adequate.

Will you be the first to volunteer, then? It sounds more like something someone would say who is safely removed from danger.

I see death and the causes of it every day.

I will be among the second wave down, I imagine.

But thanks for assuming to know someone's relative position to danger.

People die. Period.

I'm sorry, I shouldn't assume what you are like or what you do based on a post. That single statement was somewhat crass & callous. As a hospital worker, aren't you concerned with doing everything we can to protect people from this virus? It seems like a pretty remote danger at any rate right now, so let's hope it stays that way.

somewhere on earth, birds are migrating.

:cry:

I may be a crass jerk to say this, but the herd needs a little thinning anyway. Nature always finds a way to bring overpopulation back into line.

Okay. You first.

Viruses mutate pretty rapidly - especially once they glom onto human DNA -- see for an intro David Clark and Lonnie Russell's "Molecular Biology Made Simple and Fun" (don't be turned off by their breezy informal style or the cover - it's a wqell written book for a first course in molecular biology) - or for the real thing Jacquelyn Black's latest incarnation of "Microbiology: Principles and Explorations".

which means they know of some human to human. They go on to say that it is still considered a bird to human illness. We are at level 3 which they define as "No or very limited human to human transmission."

http://www.who.int/csr/disease/avian_influenza/phase/en/index.html

No change

:wow:

Somehow, this missed me.

In every thread I've read, it's been "no human to human yet... no worries yet"

Of possible H-H spread within a family...happened a while back, and had never been confirmed.

There is no spread of a H-H form of the virus.

read the rest of the thread... including the part about the possibility of it being less virulent than first thought.

Encouraging, but I still hope our government will put in place the same emergency procedures as Britain has.

http://www.haberturk.com/news/211502.html
The first list of names are confirmed bird flu with ages
The second list were sent home after determined not bird flu. At least this is what a turkish citizen on a bird flu board I hang out says. And this is just one hospital.
There are more hospitals in other areas with possible positives.


I've been following it since yesterday. The place is crawling with WHO teams so we will know more soon.

Last I heard, the bird flu was in Indonesia & maybe China - far in South Asia. Now all of a sudden, it crops up in Turkey, thousands of miles away, without ever touching the countries in between. That's weird, isn't it? I know birds migrate, but I don't understand how it could travel in such an odd way w/o having any apparant effect until it hits Turkey. It seems to suggest that this might be a modified strain of the virus.

is it may be evolving to be more easily transmissible from bird to human and turkey has been fighting outbreaks for a while in their poultry. As for other countries, I think it just is not being reported.

a few months ago in Pravda it announced that Turkey had wild birds infected with the bird Flu and chickens... scared the hell out of Europe...

turkey is their worst nightmare cause sanitation is very poor... Its a Breeding ground alright...

people at one time shows a change in the virus. It hs always been sporadic cases with small clusters in Asia.

they're worried, because it's so many cases in people, related to the number of cases in birds, and in particular there are a lot of cases in children, but that could be attributable to the way they raise poultry in that part of Turkey. Apparently, it's common to raise chickens in small henhouses that are only accessible by children and collecting eggs and cleaning the henhouses are the kids' chores, which would account for the higher incidence among children. It might not be a mutation.

I wish the WHO had been able to get in quicker. We'll just have to wait for what they have to say, though it wouldn't hurt for people reading this to go buy about two weeks worth of can foods and consider getting N95 respirator masks for their family members.

I wish I could be following this story as closely as you are. Bookmarked your link for this weekend after work. BTW have you seen the BBC's two hour-long documentaries?

If so yes. Very good programs.
I am following the Turkish outbreak at this link
http://www.curevents.com/vb/showthread.php?t=33806&page=16&pp=40
A poster there who lives in Turkey is posting what the papers and the news is reporting.

Must get back to work, but you can be sure I'll be watching this discussion tonight. BBC Live Five news this morning stated that this situation was NOT a possible pandemic outbreak, but with 23 infected it's starting to look like a cluster to me.

Very sad news there about the 4th kid, not brought to hospital until infected for 10 days and now in critical condition.

Yes, the BBC Panorama documentaries were very good. Too bad they weren't shown on network TV here in the U.S.

The eleven year old sibling just died.

http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/swissinfo.html?siteSect=143&sid=6363689&cKey=1136529317000

ANKARA (Reuters) - A third child from the same family died of bird flu in a Turkish hospital on Friday, the third human fatality outside China and Southeast Asia.

snip

The children lived in a remote rural district of eastern Turkey near the Armenian border. A six-year-old brother is also being treated for the same disease in the hospital.

Huseyin Avni Sahin, the head doctor at Van hospital where the children died, told CNN Turk 23 people were now being treated at his hospital for suspected bird flu.

"Fifteen of them are in bed, one in a critical condition. Eight are able to move about. Most of the patients are children," he said.

The deadly H5N1 bird flu virus remains hard for people to catch but there are fears it could mutate into a form easily transmitted among humans. Experts say a pandemic among humans could kill millions and cause massive economic losses.

snip

Turkey is culling thousands of poultry across several eastern provinces as a precautionary measure and has sent extra supplies of the Tamiflu medicine used against the disease to Van, which is about 800 km (500 miles) east of the capital Ankara.

today on their website
http://www.pandemicflu.gov/plan/tab3.html

A blurb about the above in the washington post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/05/AR2006010501914.html

http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/01/06/turkey.birdflu/index.html

Huseyin Avni Sahin, the head doctor at Van hospital where the children died, told CNN Turk 23 people were now being treated at his hospital for suspected bird flu.

World Health Organization (WHO) spokeswoman Maria Cheng told CNN the group has confirmed that the two teenagers had an H5 variety of the avian influenza, but said it is not yet known if it was the deadly H5N1 strain.

snip...
Professor Colin Blakemore, chief executive of Britain's Medical Research Council, said one cause for concern was that the girl who died had been treated with the anti-bird flu drug Tamiflu -- though she had not been given it until the late stages of the disease.

snip...
However, officials said some families were trying to conceal some of their poultry.

The WHO, which had been expecting human cases after the virus was first detected among wild birds and poultry in Turkey and parts of southeast Europe late last year, said the latest cases did not mean a worldwide flu pandemic had become more likely.

.................................................................

Tamiflu didn't work...
and the biggest fear here is that it has gone human to human...
they don't say it but they are investigating it...

That is not new...the fact that the parents aren't sick still indicates it hasn't passed person to person. These kids were playing with dead chicken heads...of chickens that were eaten because they were sick.

As to the other suspected cases...what I have heard is that these people are from different areas of the same province...not a cluster of several people in close proximity that have all gotten sick.

Where did they pick it up?

have small backyard flocks of chickens and bring them in the house to sleep at night. Bird shit, sick birds, cooking and handling sick birds and so on could explain all of this. This could just be a cluster phenomenon.

That said, it might not be and it would be prudent to become as knowledgeable and prepared as possible. When a pandemic hits, this and most governments will rapidly become overwhelmed and ineffective.

up under pressure.

:bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce:

of being ready for bird flu. Britain is way ahead of us; they even have plans in place to maintain the food distribution system in the event of a pandemic. Their government has been working with the supermarket industry for over a year.

At least they have universal health care & don't turn away the sick to die like we do.

within two weeks of the start of a full blown pandemic (and notice I didn't say a bird flu pandemic or H5N1 pandemic. This is the current, most likely candidate but we don't know) every country's hospital systems will be overloaded and unable to handle further patient loads. One of the things we talked about but figured out no answers on was whether we would be able to set up, for lack of a better word, MASH units and as well, who would be designated as triage authorities. That is a job I would rather slit my wrists than have. That is the person or persons who decide whether they can use precious medical services for you or not and while there might be some bastardization of the system it will, for the most part, be decided on whether there is any potential to save your life.

that it hasn't gone human to human the story is suspicous

Its like Turkey is in a panic...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10711775/

Others hospitalized
Another child who also tested positive for H5N1 is hospitalized in Van. The child was identified as Yusuf Tunc, and it was unclear whether there was any connection with the others. Doctors said Tunc was in critical condition.

Separately, the Health Ministry said late Friday that yet another patient, who was hospitalized in Van, tested positive for bird flu according to preliminary tests carried out at a Turkish lab in Istanbul.

more...
the chickens and fowl are dying and the people are frightened todeath and are in a panic...

its on the border of Iran...

people involved in the cull were suited up and wearing masks, but the village kids were running round after the chickens completely unprotected. News here even showed on farmer saying his birds were ill, he was a neighbour of the family that had the original cases. He didn't want the same thing to happen to his kids but it seemed like he and his kids were helping the officials to destroy the chicken coop and catch the chickens. They were of course completely unprotected.

Seems like the virus has been given every opportunity to mutate.

officials "officiated" was on both bbc and rte but the footage of the neighbour was on rte. Just checked their site, but the video they have on there is just a brief synopsis.

of what it will be like worldwide when a pandemic comes. It does not, in itself, indicate that a pandemic has already started but rather, it indicates that human nature will prevail and that these people are terrified.

I've raised them forever, eat their eggs and treat them well, I don't eat them, but am I at risk for bird flu by raising and having these ducks?

you should be fine as we don't have it here yet though I'd be minimizing their exposure to wild birds. I have two chickens as pets myself.


edited for spelling

H5N1 will reach America through migratory birds. Keep your poultry contained. Free-range chickens, ironically enough, will be at greater risk.

They are contained and no outside contact will be allowed. LOL

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L07754664.htm
GENEVA, Jan 7 (Reuters) - The World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Saturday it had confirmed that two children hospitalised in Turkey had contracted the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu, a spokeswoman said.

She said the children, a 5-year-old and an 8-year-old, were from the same region where three other children died from bird flu this week. She declined to give any further details.

on the message board says that a reporter has been hospitalized. Hopefully it is nothing, just hysteria.
http://www.curevents.com/vb/showthread.php?p=252018#post252018
He also says the drivers have been hospitalized.
A heads up just in case...

Just woke up here in California. Going to check now. Is Oric speculating what news organization might have the ill reporter & drivers?

keeping up. :)
No further word on the reporter. Did you see where the WHO did not get out of the bus when they reached the town? That is very strange.

Turkish bird flu victims 'were playing with chicken heads'

Luke Harding
Saturday January 7, 2006
The Guardian


An 11-year-old girl became the third victim of bird flu in Turkey yesterday, days after her brother and sister died from the disease. Hulya Kocyigit, 11, died in a hospital in the eastern city of Van, as teams from the World Health Organisation and the European commission arrived in the region to assess the risk.

Doctors said the Kocyigit children had almost certainly contracted bird flu after playing with the heads of dead chickens at their parents' rural poultry farm. The girl's sister Fatima, 15, and brother Mehmet Ali, 14, died earlier this week. They are the first to have died from the H5N1 bird-flu strain in Turkey, prompting fears it could spread to mainland Europe.

<snip>

"It looks like these cases have come from direct contact with poultry. We have seen this with most of the east Asian cases," Christine McNab, a spokeswoman for the WHO in Geneva, told the Guardian yesterday. She added: "If there is an outbreak of avian flu in poultry then eventually there will be human cases, especially if people touch infected chicken blood, feathers or insides. It's one of the major modes of transmission."
Some 30 people are in hospital with bird flu-like symptoms, officials in Van said. Three of them were in a serious condition. The condition of a fourth ill child from the same family had improved and he was no longer on a respirator.

The children were admitted with high fevers, coughing and bleeding in their throats. They had reportedly tossed the chicken heads "like balls" inside their home in Dogubayazit, a remote town close to the border with Armenia. "They played with the heads for days," Huseyin Avni Sahin, the head of the hospital, told agencies. "They were in very, very close contact with the dead chickens."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/birdflu/story/0,14207,1681097,00.html

Damn. And it's wintertime, too. What else will my children do to keep me from going batty? . . .

n/t

But I'm not saying it's true either. Just explaining the reasoning. If it's made up, I doubt it's WHO that's doing it.

but not nearly as contrived as the built-in institutionalized "keep people fearful of the bogeyman" , in this case 'bird flu pandemic', routine so they won't look at the institution that enslaves them.

Cui Bono?

Rumsfeld's growing stake in Tamiflu
Defense Secretary, ex-chairman of flu treatment rights holder, sees portfolio value growing.
October 31, 2005: 10:55 AM EST
By Nelson D. Schwartz, Fortune senior writer

NEW YORK (Fortune) - The prospect of a bird flu outbreak may be panicking people around the globe, but it's proving to be very good news for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other politically connected investors in Gilead Sciences, the California biotech company that owns the rights to Tamiflu, the influenza remedy that's now the most-sought after drug in the world.

Rumsfeld served as Gilead (Research)'s chairman from 1997 until he joined the Bush administration in 2001, and he still holds a Gilead stake valued at between $5 million and $25 million, according to federal financial disclosures filed by Rumsfeld.

The forms don't reveal the exact number of shares Rumsfeld owns, but in the past six months fears of a pandemic and the ensuing scramble for Tamiflu have sent Gilead's stock from $35 to $47. That's made the Pentagon chief, already one of the wealthiest members of the Bush cabinet, at least $1 million richer.

Rumsfeld isn't the only political heavyweight benefiting from demand for Tamiflu, which is manufactured and marketed by Swiss pharma giant Roche. (Gilead receives a royalty from Roche equaling about 10% of sales.) Former Secretary of State George Shultz, who is on Gilead's board, has sold more than $7 million worth of Gilead since the beginning of 2005.

Another board member is the wife of former California Gov. Pete Wilson.

more...
http://money.cnn.com/2005/10/31/news/newsmakers/fortune_rumsfeld/

genetic material floating in a sea of enzymes in a thin membrane -- waiting to hijack healthy host DNA -- and that host's hijacked DNA is the new killer virus.


Clark & Russell, Molecular Biology Made Simple and Fun
<> or

Jacquelyn Black, Microbiology
<>

and very American centric. This isn't about little old us. This will be a worldwide problem. And Rumsfeld won't be able to spend a penny of his blood money if he and his are dead.

Chicken heads chicken heads roly poly chicken heads.

I think I just wet my pants a little! Thanks for the laugh.

(I have a vulture head in my kitchen right now, I kid you not)

hidden under the rosebushes!

I found it today! Attatched to a vulture!!!

:D

Two people with vulture heads in their kitchens. :hide: That's all I'm gonna say about that!

Some people just have no decorating taste at all! ;-)

:hide:

...from time to time.

I mean, what the hell else are you going to do with a headless calf?

...to play with chicken heads.
:hide:

You'll take away my chicken heads when you pry them from my COLD DEAD HANDS! :grr:

playing with dead chicken heads.

57-62 people couldn't have all been playing with chicken heads, but those are the kinds of numbers the latest reports from the scene are saying. There is also a video report up on the BBC video player discussing a crowded situation inside and outside a local hospital.

Turkey, as has been the case with the Asian countries that have had cases, has a population that predominantly has family chicken flocks and they bring them in at night. If the avian flu is sweeping through their country now, clusters could well be seen.

That said, I've been keeping up with this very closely and I had already done everything on the www.pandemicflu.org website so there is nothing left for me to do but monitor. If the WHO alert level goes up to 5, my family is going to ground. Kiddo will be getting a nice long vacation from school. We'll probably leave early for Washington as we will be living in the country up there and I think it would be easier to weather in the country.

Hadn't seen that website before and not familiar with the WHO rating scale. Going to check now.

the correct one is www.pandemicflu.gov

http://www3.niaid.nih.gov/news/newsreleases/2005/H5N1QandA.htm

lets hope they work fast?

http://www.showtvnet.com/haber/guncel/07012006/grip.shtml

Similar footage aired a few hours ago on ABC's Good Morning America Saturday.

They cut that report like a MTV video. That's not going to do a damn thing to help the situation.

http://telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/01/08/wflu08.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/01/08/ixworld.html

Excerpt:

"My daughter Fatma killed it, Mehmet and Hulya plucked its feathers, my wife cooked and we all ate it. Hasan Ali - he is so naughty - kicked the chicken's head like a football. If we'd only known where this would all lead," said Mr Kocyigit, burying his head in his hands.

It wasn't until two days later, on December 31, that the children showed signs of illness. "I took Mehmet to the local dispensary. The doctor took a look at Mehmet and accused him of feigning illness so he could skip school. He prescribed him some syrup and sent us off." By the following day the children's condition had deteriorated.

"They had high temperatures and their throats were bleeding," said Mr Kocyigit. "We took them to the dispensary again and told the doctor they had eaten chicken. He told us to take them to Van hospital saying they might either have food poisoning or bird flu."

On January 1 Mehmet died. Athough doctors at Van hospital said they suspected the children had contracted bird flu, the government dismissed that diagnosis as irresponsible and announced on January 2 that the boy had died of pneumonia.

http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/redir.php?jid=e1190f255c716b93&cat=c08dd24cec417021

DOGUBEYAZIT, Turkey - Turkey reported Saturday a fourth human case of bird flu and new outbreaks among birds amid accusations that the government is mishandling the crisis in the country's remote east.

With the disease now at Europe's doorstep, experts from the World Health Organization (WHO) arrived in Turkey but bad weather forced them to postpone on Sunday a trip to the infected areas.

Health Minister Recep Akdag said avian influenza had been detected in a fourth person, currently under treatment in a hospital in the city of Van, after officials confirmed three human cases on Friday.
more...

Europe has sent WHO but WHO couldn't get in because of the weather...

the question is has Turkey gone Martial law... Quarantine is not voluntary... I was told if I go into quarantine here in the US ... I'm there till the duration ... so hopefully Turkey is sending in food shipments to these towns for these people living there...

You don't quarantine unless there is evidence... this may have jumped the barrier to human to human...

I saw the symptoms and reminds me of the 1918 flu... with the blood from the throat...

01.08.2006 Sunday - ISTANBUL 12:49

Bird Flu Spreads, 11 Cities Quarantined

Published: Sunday, January 08, 2006
zaman.com

Bird flu cases were detected in Erzincan and Bitlis after it was found in Agri, Kars, Van, Yalova, Ankara, Igdir, Erzurum and Sanliurfa, informed Mehdi Eker, the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Affairs. Early on Saturday evening, the Kahadir village of Bursa was put under quarantine.

Yozgat: Measures were increased over the deaths of birds in four villages of the Akdagmadeni district. Almost 2,500 birds were killed. Three were hospitalized at the Hospital of Sivas Cumhuriyet University as a precaution against possible bird flu stroke.

Sanliurfa: Esat Bal, 13, transferred from Siverek to Diyarbakir and hospitalized at the Hospital of Dicle University, remains in critical condition and is receiving intensive care.

Siirt: Five children from the Baysal family were hospitalized at the Research Hospital of Dicle University on suspicion of bird flu infection. The Baysal family, residents of the Celikli Village of the Baykan District, lost their chickens four days ago.

MORE
http://zaman.com/?bl=national&alt=&trh=20060108&hn=28404

that actually might be a good thing ... Quarantine would be very effective but in Turkey maintaining quarantine would be a major problem...

On Sunday, a group of Turkish workers in Dogubayazit had to climb over a wall when a village woman refused to open the door and hand over her several chickens, insisting they were fine. The workers could not persuade her to part with the chickens and withdrew, saying they would come back with police.

It is a scene often repeated across the impoverished eastern parts of the country, where sometimes chickens are a family's most valuable possession.

Akdag urged calm, but Dr. Gencay Gursoy, head of the Istanbul Physicians Association, said the situation was grave. "Turkey and the world are facing the threat of a serious infection" he said.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/01/08/news/web.0801flu.php

Two Turkish children were confirmed to have been infected with deadly strain of H5N1 which was blamed for death of three siblings in the province of VVan.
Sümeyye Mamuk (5) and Yusuf Tunç (8), who have been receiving treatment at Van hospitals along with 35 other suspected patients, were confirmed to have been carrying H5N1 strain. Health conditions of the children were reported to be good.

Van 100th Year University Hospital Chief Doctor Hüseyin Avni ?ahin told reporters on Saturday that they had treated more than 150 people over 8 days. 35 of them are receiving treatment at the hospital. Four of the patients are under intensive care.

http://www.cihannews.com/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4593892.stm

International bird flu experts have come to the eastern Turkish region of Van, to try to find out how quickly the deadly H5N1 strain is spreading.

Earlier, two children and an adult tested positive for H5N1 in Turkey's capital Ankara, the city's governor, Kemal Onal, said.

Two more children in Van have tested positive, days after five people died in the village of Dogubeyazit.
snip...
(ok these are the tested positives

The ones in Ankara are far away from Van)

Turkish officials stress there is no sign yet the virus has mutated into a much-feared form that could pass between humans. (YET)

The Ankara outbreak has not been confirmed by World Health Organization labs, but is still likely to trigger panic, says the BBC's Sarah Rainsford in Turkey

snip...

Twenty people remain in hospital in the city of Van receiving treatment for suspected bird flu.

An emergency cull of all poultry in Dogubeyazit has been called, but there have been accusations that it is agonisingly slow

more...

Also from the BBC

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4586310.stm
Turkish officials are stressing that these cases do not mark the start of a pandemic.

They have been using endless live TV broadcasts to point out that most people infected with bird flu have still had direct contact with diseased poultry.

But scientists say the problem is that the more cases there are like the Kocyigit family, the higher the chance the virus will mutate into a new form able to spread easily from human to human.
snip...

The semi-official Anatolia news agency now reports further outbreaks of the virus among poultry in at least four new regions of Turkey, including central Anatolia




Turkey is probably the worst place for this to hit...

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L08750012.htm
Iran, which borders the Turkish region worst affected by the outbreak, closed one of its border crossings, forcing many Turks travelling there for this week's major Muslim holiday marking the Feast of the Sacrifice to return home, Anatolian said.

Interfax news agency quoted Russia's chief state epidemiologist, Gennady Onishchenko, as saying: "I earnestly advise Russian citizens to refrain from travelling to Turkey, especially to the eastern province of Agri and the city of Dogubayazit, where the situation is particularly alarming."

By Gareth Jones and Selcuk Gokoluk

ANKARA, Jan 8 (Reuters) - Three Turks tested positive for a deadly strain of bird flu in the capital Ankara on Sunday, a new stage in the westward sweep of the disease from its east Asian origins towards major economic centres in Turkey and Europe.

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 after contracting the highly potent H5N1 strain.

As doctors confirmed that two children and a 60-year-old man were being treated in Ankara for the virus, Russia raised fears of the disease impacting Turkey's economy by warning its citizens against visiting the popular holiday destination.

Doctors said the infected children, aged 5 and 2, came from Beypazari west of Ankara and had caught the virus after contact with dead wild birds. Their parents tested negative.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L08750012.htm

for these children couldn't have had contact with these other infected people... alarming its hitting young and old...

that was a story fed through the media to keep the panic down...
Dontcha love the news media trying to hide the evidence of a major outbreak

The quarantining is a disaster... these people are ignorant and will hide their chickens meanwhile it only makes human to human conversion more likely

if it hasn't jumped all ready...

tamiflu is a joke here...

soon Europe will have to close their borders to Turkey its inevitble...

US should be issuing orders for no citizens to travel there and to check out thoroughly citizens coming from there... Everybody is going to panic and want out...

Its serious...

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,17771832-23109,00.html

FIVE more people have tested positive for bird flu in Turkey, a health ministry official said today. It brings to 14 the number of people suffering from the disease, including two who have already died.

Mon Jan 9, 2006 3:16 AM ET
ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Twenty-one people in the Istanbul area are in hospital amid fears they have bird flu, newspapers said on Monday, raising concern the deadly disease has spread to Turkey's commercial hub of 12 million people.

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

Istanbul province deputy health director Mehmet Bakar said initial tests on two dead chickens in the Istanbul district of Kucukcekmece indicated they were infected by the bird flu virus, the reports said. A third test was being carried out to determine the definitive diagnosis.

"21 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 in Star newspaper.

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-01-09T081557Z_01_ARM929440_RTRUKOC_0_US-BIRDFLU-TURKEY-ISTANBUL.XML

Three reported cases were in the capital, Ankara while two were in the eastern city of Van. The new cases raise the number of suspected and confirmed cases in Turkey to 15.

Samples have been sent to a British lab to determine if the avian flu is being spread bird-to-human or human-to-human.

Health authorities believe the virus could one day mutate and spread directly among the human population rather than from birds to people.

snip...

But Russia's chief epidemiologist has urged his countrymen not to travel to Turkey -- a popular vacation destination for Russians -- because of the bird flu outbreak, the Interfax news agency reported Sunday.

snip...

Despite the deaths, workers in the village of Dogubayazit, where the siblings lived, still had trouble Sunday persuading some villagers to hand over their fowl for destruction, The Associated Press reported.

more...

I'll answer my first question and Turkey can't handle this...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4595582.stm

The number of cases of bird flu in humans may have been hugely under-reported, a study says.
Swedish researchers interviewed nearly 46,000 people from Vietnam, where there have been 87 cases of bird flu, the Archives of Internal Medicine reported.

They found that more than 8,000 had had flu-like symptoms and up to 750 cases could have been down to sick birds.

Under-reporting was possible, experts said, but unlikely to be as much as the Karolinska Institute study suggested.

Lead researcher Anna Thorson said the study - the largest one carried out into bird flu to date - clearly suggested the incidence of the virus in humans was much higher than had been recognised.

more...

That this flu is much LESS deadly than feared...since virtually all of these cases resulted in mild forms of illness...

confirmed and suspect cases.
http://www.recombinomics.com/News/01090602/H5N1_Turkey_139.html

Have turned out not to be bird flu...

"Health officials said Tuesday most of the 70 or so people hospitalized with flu-like symptoms had tested negative for bird flu."

On MSNBC

http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/?sid=47516563faf058d9

Turkish health minister Recep Akdag says preliminary tests show five more people are infected with the bird flu virus.

The cases were detected in four provinces, raising the number of suspected and confirmed cases in Turkey to 17.
snip...

The World Health Organization, whose experts are conducting investigations in the affected areas, has confirmed that 10 Turks including the dead siblings, had tested positive for the deadly H5N1 strain of the disease.

The strain has not been proven to be communicable from human to human. But WHO officials express concern that the more people who contract the disease, the greater the risk that it mutates into a strain that is transmitted among humans.
more...

There investigating it...

That in the 70 cases being investigated, none of thepatients in critical condition...which may speak to the possibility (as noted in the study released earlier today), that this virus if far less deadly than originally thought, but which had been suspected by several experts.

On Edit: MSNBC reports that these 70 cases turned out not to be bird flu. Still only 15 confirmed cases.

It means that it is getting more efficient in infecting people. For now many are not getting really sick as far as we can tell from the press reports (and tamiflu is being given to suspected cases early on which may be making a difference)but there has been a clampdown on news since the WHO came in. It is still mutating and we don't know what is coming down the line but whatever it will be it now can infect humans easier.

This was the first study done. Given the primary concern was a pandemic virus killing 50% of those infected, this is certainly good news. And since no thorough study has been done before now, we have no idea when it began infecting humans. If you read the study published a couple days ago, it points out that close contact with sick and dying birds was a requirement for this illness.

It is far too early to say it has mutated in any significant way

has been WHO's standard for testing which states one must have had contact with poultry.
No telling how many people misdiagnosed in asia cause they did not fit the parameters.
It is a wait and see for now. I see Romania has a possible case. A turkish citizen is in the hospital today in that country. Keeping my fingers crossed it does not go pandemic.

It is clear that contact with sick and dying poultry was the key difference between groups showing an elevated instance of flu like symptoms and those not.

That was the point of the study. Had it been otherwise there wouldn't have been a marked difference in those groups!

The mutation identified today is not new, and has appeared on two occasions in the far east. All tests done so far come to the same conclusion, that this strain is nearly identical in every important way with the one infecting birds in the far east.

What is new is the lower mortality rate that seems to be appearing, and the study which strongly suggests the same in VietNam.

Fixing of Human Polymorphisms in H5N1 in Wild Birds

Recombinomics Commentary
January 13, 2006



The composition of the 2005 isolates from Vietnam are also unclear, because none of the sequences have been made public, even though the above isolate was described in a peer reviewed journal, which usually requires sequences be made pubic.

The acquisition of S227N was predicted based on donor sequences present in H9N2 in the Middle East. The presence of H5N1 in migratory birds allowed for dual infections involving H5N1 and H9N2 in the Middle East, which may have been due to the expected recombination. The fixing of S227N in the bird population is cause for concern.

The two isolates from the Hong Kong patients in 2003 did not have the PB2 E627K, so the human isolate from Turkey may be the first example of H5N1 with both HA S227N and PB2 E627K.


http://www.recombinomics.com/News/0...227N_Fixed.html

I don't trust them...every report I have read from WHO officials indicates this mutation was seen in 2003 in China.

In any case, one small mutation in one sample is inconsequential. Viruses mutate all the time.

http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/?sid=0efe7154825df543

A University of Illinois professor says national leaders must talk less about war and terrorism and more about infectious diseases.

Julian Palmore, director of the university's Program in Arms Control, Disarmament and International Security, says world leaders and policymakers need to seriously consider the potential international security implications that would result from an avian influenza pandemic.

Natural disasters, especially pandemics, can and do affect international security in many ways, he writes in a brief critical commentary in the March issue of the journal Defense and Security Analysis. the U. of I. professor said. "They can have disastrous effects on countries' economies, infrastructures, populations, public health and stability. As a consequence of natural disasters, governments may fail and populations may be decimated
more...

goes along with the U.S. and Israel against Iran - Robertson won't be able to say that the Turkish people deserve the flu because of their sinning or because they are infidels.

Updated at 15:22 on January 11, 2006, EST.

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) - Turkey's fast-moving outbreak of bird flu prompted villagers across the border in Georgia to slaughter chickens, geese and ducks en masse Wednesday, while in neighbouring Greece, Georgia and Syria, authorities beefed up border inspections.

In Russia, nationalist legislator Vladimir Zhirinovsky even urged men to grab rifles and shoot migratory birds to keep the virus at bay. The European Union announced it would keep monitoring wild and domestic birds around the 25-member bloc until end of the year, and a Swiss soccer club cancelled a trip to Turkey.

The measures were taken despite assurances by the World Health Organization that there was no reason to panic and no evidence of person-to-person infection.

"The worst situation is a panic situation. There is no reason to panic," said Dr. Marc Danzon, the WHO's regional director for Europe. "There is no transmission from human being to human being through a mutation that could cause a pandemic."

MORE

http://www3.cjad.com/content/cp_article.asp?id=/global_feeds/CanadianPress/WorldNews/w011133A.htm

UN calls for $1.5bn bird flu fund

The UN has called for $1.5bn to help implement programmes to fight bird flu and prepare for a pandemic in humans.
The UN's bird flu co-ordinator said he hoped the funds would be pledged at an international donors summit to be held in Beijing on 17 and 18 January.

Vital lessons in fighting the virus are emerging from Turkey's outbreak, which has left at least two people dead from the H5N1 strain and 13 in hospital.

The UN says rapid response to outbreaks and public education is essential.

more...
Turkey screwed up....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4604150.stm

The Twilight Zone had an episode where there was supposed to be an alien (or a bad guy) among the crowd. Everyone started looking at their loved ones, their neighbors, their friends with suspicion. Someone does something differently, the crowd gets whipped into a frenzy, someone dies. Turns out, there wasn't anything going wrong in this little town - it was all a big mistake. Someone still died and people were never able to look at each other the same way.

Panic did this to them - yes, I know, it's just a story. But there's truth to the scenario. If they start grabbing guns and shooting birds, how long will it be before they decide more than birds should be shot?

It doesn't help when you can't trust those in authority to tell you the truth either. I reiterate, panic is what worries me most.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/11/AR2006011100464.html
Bird Flu Mutation Of Concern, Experts Say
Health Officials Play Down Change Observed in Turkey

By Daniel Williams and Alan Sipress
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, January 12, 2006; Page A12

ISTANBUL, Jan. 11 -- Preliminary tests show that the strain of bird flu virus that has hit at least 15 people in Turkey has evolved in a way that could make it somewhat more hazardous to human beings, although it still lacks the capacity to be passed easily from person to person, international health officials said Wednesday.

The analysis, based on the sequencing of one of the virus's genes, suggests that at least some of the H5N1 bird flu virus here carries a change in one of its proteins, according to Michael L. Perdue of the World Health Organization. That protein is what lets the virus attach to cells and penetrate them.

"It's a little concerning because the virus is still trying new things in its evolution," said Perdue, who is overseeing the agency's response to the Turkish outbreak from WHO headquarters in Geneva.

Influenza experts are studying the apparent change to determine its significance, Perdue said. A spokesman for Britain's Medical Research Council, which is involved in the research, said it would take a few days to confirm the preliminary findings.

The experts believe the genetic change could make it easier for the virus to pass from chickens to people. It has not given it the capacity to be easily passed from person to person -- a trait the virus would need in order to trigger a global epidemic.

Nancy J. Cox, who heads the influenza branch at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, said the change was found in one sample of H5N1 isolated from a Turkish child who recently died of the infection. The hemagglutinin protein, which the virus uses to attach to cells of the respiratory tract, had an alteration not usually seen in avian influenza viruses. Other incremental changes in the virus have been seen in China and Vietnam since outbreaks began in 2003.

Experts from the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization warned that the virus could become permanently entrenched in Turkey, thereby increasing its risk to people and the chance it could evolve further. "The highly pathogenic avian influenza virus H5N1 could become endemic in Turkey," the organization said in a statement.
snip



Perdue noted that the Spanish influenza of 1918, which caused an estimated 40 million deaths worldwide, began as an ordinary bird virus but gradually evolved into a global human killer through a series of these incremental changes.

At a news conference in Ankara, the Turkish capital, international health officials played down fears of an epidemic.

Turkey has helped it evolve...

The sypmtoms remind me of the 1918 epidemic with blood from the mouth...

With at least Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran standing between them geographically.

Politically though, Turkey seems to bear some measure of significance: "In 2004 the American Turkish Council was led by Bush family insider LTG Brent Scowcroft, USAF (Ret.) who served as Chairman of the Board. George Perlman of Lockheed Martin was the Executive Vice President and Marise Stewart of Textron the Vice President. Executives from every major US and Turkish corporation are members. Among them are Mars (candy), Coca Cola, Atlantic Records, Shell Oil, ExxonMobil, Pfizer, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, Hyatt and Phillip Morris. Dozens of retired US Flag officers, ex-ambassadors and representatives sit on the ATC Board of Directors."

Having avian flu pop up on Turkey's border with Iran is as interesting a coincidence as having history's worst Marburg epidemic originate in a Barrick Gold mine.

No expert has said that, and there is 0 evidence for that assertion. Fact is, it appears less virulent than previously thought. There was of course the study of Vietnamese cases published two days ago, and the anecdotal evidence in Turkey of 16 current infections, with none being critical. And of course the two boys with no symptoms that everyone has heard about.

As to the blood from the mouth, any serious flu infection can cause that. That has happened to me and can happen for a variety of reasons, including excessive coughing.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/SP213509.htm
ANKARA, Jan 12 (Reuters) - Turkey reported on Thursday two new cases of people infected with deadly bird flu as a top World Health Organisation (WHO) official warned that the threat of a pandemic was growing daily.

snip
The Health Ministry said tests showed that the virus was in the lungs of a third Turkish child who died last week, the sister of the two dead teenagers confirmed as bird flu victims.

Two more victims of H5N1 were confirmed by the ministry, which would bring the total number of humans infected in Turkey to 18. Turkey has previously reported 15 infected people.

Indonesia said on Thursday a 29-year-old woman who had bird flu, according to a local test result, had died.

None are reported to be in critical condition, with at least two showing no symptoms. How does anyone know that the panic has simply not induced people who otherwise might not have sought treatment to go to the hospital. This may not indicate a rise in infections at all. It may only indicate a rise in reported infections.

that it isn't there... Don't trust newspapers... thats for sure...

Gives you carte blanche to spread any information you want if no proof is required

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-01-12T183254Z_01_EIC263227_RTRUKOC_0_US-BIRDFLU-TURKEY-WHO.XML

ANKARA (Reuters) - The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday the number of people who have caught the deadly bird flu virus in Turkey has risen to 18 from 15, most of them children.

snip
Rodier said one of two boys who tested positive for bird flu in an Ankara hospital but who had not shown any symptoms of the virus had now developed some.



edit to say that everyone is getting tamiflu and it seems to be working as the death rate has decreased, how much due to evolution and how much due to medication remains to be seen

With only the most severe being hospitalized...there is no way to know until more studies have been done. But there is now some evidence that this is true.

On edit: This statement is also important

"We got good solid results back from London showing transmission is entirely avian," he said. "There is no evidence of any change in the transmission pattern of the virus."

I hope Turkey can get a handle on this but when they can't kill the birds thats just a breeding place for disaster...

http://www.kristv.com/Global/story.asp?S=4359691
ANKARA, Turkey There's no hard evidence yet, but an expert at the World Health Organization says the deadly bird flu strain in Turkey could be passing from person to person.

snip
Rodier says he can't rule out person-to-person infection because they haven't been through every case yet.
snipBut Rodier says even if that happened, it's possible the virus could be contained in families and not trigger a pandemic.

That's their job...

Not only is there no hard evidence, there's no evidence at all...and every test that has been run so far indicates the opposite

No news here whatsoever...

Update : Two BF patients in critical condition

Ağrı'nın Doğubayazıt İlçesi'nden getirilen 12
yaşındaki Fatma Özcan ile 5 yaşındaki kardeşi Muhammet Özcan'ın sağlık
durumlarının iyi olmadığını bildirdi.

Fatma Ozcan (5) and Muhammet Ozcan (12) from Dogubeyazit, in Van YYU Hospital are on respitorary machines, their condition is critical, the hospital announced

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/Co...ol=968350060724

Turkey epicentre of war on avian flu
Specialist has 32 patients hospitalized in eastern city

`We are the experts now' in battle to limit sickness, he says
Jan. 14, 2006. 01:00 AM
OAKLAND ROSS
FEATURE WRITER


VAN, Turkey—Three children are dead, and this snowbound mountain town high in eastern Turkey has suddenly become the new epicentre for international concern about a disease called avian flu.

"We are the experts now," says Dr. Ahmet Faik Oner, chief of pediatric hematology at the Hascanesu Hospital, a rambling complex of four-storey, rose-coloured blocks on Maras St. in downtown Van.

snip

Previously, the H5N1 strain of avian flu had passed from birds to humans only in China and in several parts of Southeast Asia, infecting more than 140 people since late 2003. Seventy-six of them have died.

Now the same virus has come to Turkey, presumably borne by wild birds that passed the deadly micro-organism to domestic fowl, which then infected humans — 18 of them so far.

"Most of the patients are children," says Oner. "We think they all had close contact with chickens."
snip


So far at the hospital in Van, three youngsters are dead of avian flu; a child and a young adult have recovered from the disease and have gone home; three more infected children remain in hospital; two others are in intensive care and seem about to join the list of confirmed human cases.

Oner expects to know the official status of these last two in a couple of days, when the test results come back from a laboratory in Ankara, 1,200 kilometres to the west.

That makes eight confirmed cases so far — with two more on the cusp — representing nearly half of the 18 confirmed human infections that have turned up in Turkey in recent days.

Snip

Here in this ramshackle but bustling town on the frigid shores of Lake Van, Oner is chiefly concerned with the fate of 32 patients at the hospital here, including 25 children and seven adults, who either are being treated for avian flu or are under observation for signs of the disease.

The sick are being treated with a combination of antibiotics, intravenous fluids, and Tamiflu, one of the few drugs that seems to be effective against the virus. Some patients also require cardiac-management medication.

"Turkish authorities have confirmed three siblings among the 18 people infected by the H5N1 strain have died, while several others are in stable condition or show few signs of illness, suggesting the virus in its current form may not be as deadly as earlier believed. Previously, more than half of those confirmed to have contracted the disease died."

More anecdotal evidence supporting the assertion of many that this virus is not as deadly as feeared.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10838534/

There are now a few on respirators. In asia cases many waited till late in the illness to go to the hospital. These were caught early. Some are doing well on tamiflu but it sees others are not. it is still early.

FOr nearly five days now...none are deemed critical. A serological study is finally being contemplated by WHO (seems a bit late to me).

The basic point is, there is no evidence that sustained H-H transmission is taking place. There is some evidence, anecdotally in Turkey, and by a study in VietNam that the disease is not as deadly as feared.

I am not saying there is not reason for concern...but all information needs to be discussed, not just the most alarming which is what happens 99% of the time.

On edit: Two more critical...still much less than in Asia. In addition we have no idea how many were not sick enough to be hospitalized

James Meikle
Saturday January 14, 2006
The Guardian

Health authorities in Turkey are investigating whether a four-year-old girl who died yesterday has become the country's fourth child fatality from bird flu since the arrival of the dreaded H5N1 virus.

The girl's father, Abdulhamit Yetisteren, said his daughter Sahide could hardly breathe when she was taken to hospital in Diyarbakir in south-east Turkey.

snip

Guanel Rodier, the WHO's head of communicable disease and response, told Associated Press news agency that it could not rule out person to person spreading because "we haven't documented each and every case properly".

Mr Rodier continued: "When you have a mother and child, and both get sick, you don't know if they were both exposed to the chickens or if the mother got sick because she was caring for the child. It leaves room for some questions. We have not documented every transmission story."

MORE
http://www.guardian.co.uk/birdflu/story/0,14207,1686248,00.html

His comments below are from The Flu Clinic:

http://www.curevents.com/vb/showthread.php?t=35039

For his bio, see:

http://www.recombinomics.com/founder.html

Although all of the above is true, it is still misleading because WHO knows that the first question that is asked is what are the disease onset dates.

If there is a gap, chances are the index case infected the family member. Initially, in 2004 this was likely the case because H5N1 did not pass efficiently from bird to human, yet family members became ill and the chance of two independent B2H transmissions was low. However, it was not possible to be certain, so you don't know for sure.

However, when the time gap appears in virtually every cluster, after about 2-3 in a row, there is little doubt that H5N1 is transmitting H2H. Moreover, as the frequency of clusters increase, the ability of H5N1 to infect humans increases because the efficiency rate is higher.

Prior to Turkey these clusters with gaps had happened 25-30 times, showing that H5N1 transmitted H2H and the transmissions were getting increasingly efficient.

In Turkey the clusters are larger than ever and more frequent than ever, so it is clear that most involve H2H. The investigations are just to buy time because the only real way to distinguish common source form horizontal transmission is the onset date the vast majority of the time (the sequence of the H5N1 will be virtually the same via either transmission mechanism).

Thus, the H2H was obvious as soon as the size of the clusters with pneumonia, fever, and bleeding from the throat were announced, and WHO knew that then and they know it now (which is why disease onset dates are not in the updates for the confirmed H5N1 cases in Turkey).

They have no access to the actual data...make wild assumptions about data they do not have, and are well know for making incorrect predictions in the past.

...his site is Recombinomics, one of the sources for this story.

By the way, if you had been following this story for a while, you would know that Dr. Niman has been ahead of the curve in analyzing this disease. Additionally, he has been VERY critical of the lack of investigative efforts by the WHO, and the CDC in Atlanta.

On data that is not available...the quote says as much. He is assuming since the data is not made available by WHo it confirms the worst

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/trib/regional/s_389125.html

<snip>
But Henry Niman's warnings -- sounded to the international press -- have not convinced fellow researchers. Niman's detractors refer to him as a "prophet of doom" who stands to profit from his overzealous penchant for crying "Pandemic!" without proof or proper qualifications.

Niman has a controversial theory about how a lethal strain of avian influenza called H5N1 could trigger a global pandemic that kills hundreds of millions of people. It defies conventional scientific wisdom by saying that the bird virus could evolve into a human virus by swapping pieces of genes, not whole genes. The resulting gene patchwork could have an easier time slipping past the body's defenses, he said.

Niman's critics accuse him of testing his theories in the popular media rather than presenting research in journals that can be reviewed by other scientists. Niman has conducted dozens of online and broadcast interviews in the past year about the bird flu, but hasn't published any academic papers on the subject.

"Niman has spread far and wide across the Internet a series of commentaries and forum posts with conclusions and predictions that make even the script writers for the 'X-Files' seem unimaginative," writes Martin Williams, a British conservationist who studies bird migration in Hong Kong.

<snip

http://www.drmartinwilliams.com/component/option,com_simpleboard/Itemid,155/func,view/id,64/catid,7/

<snip>
Yet a review of his website at www.recombinomics.com suggests that, alas, Niman has too little time for actual research or publication in scientific journals, as he pours out his commentaries, and manages a host of interviews with the media. And not content with commentaries on his own site, Niman also visits forums and weblogs, posting prodigiously, including on the supposedly "thoughtful" The Agonist - where once thoughtful info on diseases was all but suffocated by Niman and a small band who might be nimanists (but don't worry, he and his band have found other places for their nonsense).

In pure, free flowing Nimanism, the doc wrote a commentary titled Tracing WSN/33 Human Bird Flu Squences in Swine in Korea, speculating that the sequences originated from a bioweapons programme.

At least Ms Garrett was not drawn by another Niman commentary, Human WSN/33 Bioterror Attack on United States Sw - in which our Dear Speculator even suggested pigs imported to the US in 2001 were a bioterror attack.

Science Magazine, however, published an article titled "Experts dismiss pig flu scare as nonsense". This quoted noted that Niman's idea garnered much attention on the Internet and in media, irking Klaus Stöhr, WHO's global influenza coordinator, "who points out that Niman has not published in the scientific literature since 1996 and is not a flu expert."

<snip>

This is just a brief sampling of what I have found on him.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4609256.stm

Bird flu is already on the EU's doorstep - with three deaths among 18 cases of infection in Turkey.

Meanwhile, France says it will conduct exercises simulating an outbreak to test the country's readiness.

French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said he would extend a ban on rearing outdoor poultry to cover more than half of France - Europe's biggest poultry producer.

The agricultural ministry said the measures had been extended to risk areas "where there could be migratory birds", adding that further measures could be introduced "if the threat nears".

more...

France is getting ready ...

Fatma Ozcan died at 1350 (1150 GMT), authorities in the Van hospital said. Her five-year-old brother, who was confirmed with the virus, remains in a serious condition in the hospital.

Doctors believe Fatma's initial negative test may have been due to a poor quality sample, says the BBC's Sarah Rainsford in Istanbul.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4614590.stm

Turkish boy tests positive for bird flu strain

15/01/2006 - 17:16:01

Turkish health officials today announced that a five-year-old boy had tested positive for the deadly bird flu strain, increasing the number of infected people in Turkey to 19.

The boy’s sister, who died earlier today, tested negative for the H5N1 strain, according to preliminary results, the ministry said.

“With the positive case today, the number of positive bird flu cases in our country has risen to 19,” the Health Ministry said in a statement.

The boy was identified as Muhammet Ozcan. He and his 12-year-old sister, Fatma, who died today had contact with sick birds, authorities said.

Preliminary tests showed his sister tested negative for H5N1, but authorities still suspect the virus caused her death and they are conducting further tests.


snip
Head physician Dr Huseyin Avni Sahin, who treated the brother and sister at the Van 100th Year Hospital, said: “She was brought to hospital with respiration problems very late,” Sahin told reporters outside the hospital.

The girl’s younger brother was in a serious condition.

“The boy has a fever and the infection in his lung is light, it’s not advancing,” said another doctor, Ahmet Faik Oner.

Tests were under way in Ankara to determine whether more people have the virus, health authorities said.

Dozens of people are in hospital with flu-like symptoms across Turkey, including three children in Istanbul, at the doorstep of Europe. Tests were underway to determine whether any of them have contracted the deadly strain.


http://www.eecho.ie/news/bstory.asp...8xx&n=169298854

this is so sad... it just shows you can't trust the tests...

poor sample... poor reporting and poor testing

this really puts a shadow of doubt on Turkey's facilities...

How many other people have tested Negative and been released...

All these poor children....
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=4§ion=0&article=76375&d=17&m=1&y=2006
ANKARA, 17 January 2006 — A Turkish hospital was battling yesterday to save a small boy stricken with bird flu, a day after his sister perished, as doctors warned people in the flu-plagued country that belated search for medical help was proving fatal.

As officials from half the world’s nations braced for a meeting in Beijing to raise funds to tackle a possible global pandemic, an Israeli hospital was testing a man showing flu symptoms, while Indonesian labs detected the deadly virus in samples from a teenager who died over the weekend.


snip

In a university hospital in the eastern Turkish city of Van, five-year-old Muhammad Ozcan, the 19th carrier of the lethal H5N1 strain of bird flu in the country, remained in serious condition, doctors said. The boy has been described as the most worrisome case among the four H5N1 carriers, all of them children, currently undergoing treatment in the hospital.


http://www.who.int/csr/don/2006_01_16/en/index.html
Avian influenza – situation in Turkey - update 5

His 14-year-old sister died on 15 January of a respiratory disease with clinical features similar to those seen in H5N1 infection. Test results received today have confirmed her infection.

guess over 24 hours that changed WOW!!!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10876066/

Turkey kills 764,000 birds to control avian flu
Indonesia reports 13-year-old girl has died from the virus



Updated: 9:00 a.m. ET Jan. 16, 2006
ANKARA - Turkey slaughtered tens of thousands of birds on Monday as it battled to stamp out avian flu and Indonesia said a 13-year-old girl had died of the virus at the weekend.

Human victims had been confined to east Asia until this month, when three infected children from the same family died in eastern Turkey, showing the virus had reached the crossroads of Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

Turkey can still prevent bird flu from becoming firmly established among its flocks, the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said on Monday, striking a more optimistic note than it did a few days ago

more...
Turkey is scrambling now!!!

More have died from regular flues. Sheesh. Get a grip folks! Quit falling for this annual scare-a-thon courtesy of the media and your government.

Either that, or your flip statement suggests that you are completely and totally ignorant of the formidable medical and public health threats this virus poses.

For a start, you of all people need to at least pay close attention to the information presented in the two hour-long TV documentaries aired by the BBC (and in the U.S. on the Discovery Channel) a couple of weeks ago, which are available for viewing on the BBC's web site at:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/world/2005/bird_flu/default.stm#

(Look for the link that says "Panorama Special" in the far right column, which should launch the video player.)

Once you have a good understanding of the reasons why so many millions of people are so concerned, I think you'll feel quite embarrassed that you could have written the post you just wrote.

...paying close attention to the reactions of the scientists who are dealing with the evolution of Avian Flu.

I will be looking for your remarks on DU when this disease finally achieves effective human-to-human infectability. Notice I didn't write "if".

getting very concerning... people who are not watching this evolve is missing the evolution of a lethal virus ... Turkey is looking like the
perfect soup kitchen for it...so far mostly children is getting the full effect and elderly...

17 January 2006

ANKARA - Experts are awaiting the results of bird flu tests on three children hospitalized with symptoms in the western Turkish city of Istanbul. If it is established that the virus has gained a foothold there, it would bring the illness right to the doorstep of Europe.

A hastily buried 12-year-old girl was infected with the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu, officials said, the fourth Turkish child to die of the disease and the country’s 20th human case.

The latest fatality, Fatma Ozcan, died Sunday in the eastern city of Van but initially had tested negative for H5N1. The Health Ministry ordered a new round of tests after her 5-year-old brother, Muhammet, tested positive, and officials said those confirmed she was infected.

Authorities rushed to bury Fatma, wrapping her in a special body bag to contain any virus after a quick prayer beneath torches at a snowy cemetery. She was from Dogubayazit - the same town where three siblings died of bird flu about 10 days ago - and was bleeding from her mouth and throat when she was brought to the hospital.

MORE
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/theworld/2006/January/theworld_January375.xml§ion=theworld

Turkish Daily News
Monday, January 16, 2006

A 5-year-old boy tests positive for H5N1, increasing the number of infected people to 19, while the government sets up a center to coordinate the battle against the disease

ANKARA – TDN with wire dispatches

ARTICLE SUMMARY
A 12-year-old girl died in eastern Turkey from suspected bird flu yesterday and if confirmed she would be the fourth victim in the region this month.

http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=33157

7 Jan 2006 07:09:05 GMT
JAKARTA, Jan 17 (Reuters) - An Indonesian toddler died on Tuesday and was being tested for bird flu, several days after his 13-year-old sister died of the deadly H5N1 virus according to local tests, a senior Health Ministry official said.

Hariadi Wibisono, the ministry's director of control of animal-borne diseases, said the latest local test results on the 3-year-old boy were not conclusive on whether he had bird flu. An initial result had earlier shown he was positive for the virus.

"He is a borderline case so we need to have more tests," Wibisono told Reuters.

Wibisono on Monday had said another sibling, a 15-year-old girl from the same family that came from the West Java town of Indramayu, also had bird flu.

MORE
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/JAK113769.htm

Thom was interviewing a doctor and he said, this virus had mutated. What he is scared about this virus is, if birds came down with human virus and then mix with bird flu, this is going to change everything! He said, when this happen, there isn't anything people could do to stop this from spreading like a wild fire! Only thing people could do, stay away from other people!

I had been stocking up on foods for past 3 months. I now have foods and water that will last me for 6 months without even leaving house.

What are his credentials? Has he had access to samples from those who have fallen ill? Or is he just another person trying to garner publicity off of this situation?

There is no indication this virus has mutated in any appreciable way toward a Human to Human transmission.

...on Avian Flu that is being investigated under a pretty heavy news black-out?

Information on the conclusions of those in charge of investigating the virus is reported by media outlets throughout the world. All one has to do is read them to know generally what is going on, and what the latest conclusions are.

By contrast, we have so called experts with no access to the data, no access to the samples, conducting no research, and producing no papers, peer reviewed or otherwise, telling us something that is the total opposite of what everyone else, including those in charge, are telling us.

Nor should I because I am not an expert.

I do trust those in charge of the investigation. I trust WHO in terms of the conclusions they reach medically.

What I don't trust are conspiracy theories of quack doctors trying to get their name in the papers.

It is up to you, the one making the extraordinary claim, to provide proof of your assertion, proof subkect to peer review and criticism of others in the field. There is plenty of scientific evidence that one does not need to be a doctor to understand that the virus has not mutated.

show from yesterday... I believe it was either on 2nd or 3rd hour of the show.

"As experts puzzle over the rise of bird flu cases in Turkey, the country that's been Ground Zero for the frightening virus is enjoying a quiet victory: Vietnam hasn't seen any new cases in people since November and no new poultry outbreaks have been reported in the past month. "

European cases not unexpected and no evidence of mutation

"The Turkish cases are still being investigated, but experts say it appears that all of people involved were in close contact with birds. There is no hard evidence pointing to any direct human-to-human infection.

Health experts also say the latest human infections in Eastern Europe were not unexpected."


http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory?id=1512812&page=1

...to report their initial outbreaks of Avian Flu for quite some time.

You do understand that a large portion of their economy is based on tourism, don't you? Can't have a little thing like a possible communicable disease stand in the way of making money.

Do you remember how slow China was in reporting the outbreak of SARS? China has also had a problem with Avian Flu. Reports nearly 6-7 months ago from observers inside China indicated that three to four villages were razed to the ground in a location very close to the original site of the massive migratory bird deaths. The population was also "relocated" from those villages to points unknown. Additional reports indicated that villagers received a payout to compensate them for the loss of family members, a sum that when added up egualled about 750 people. Very soon after those reports found their way to the outside world a number of individuals were arrested by the Chinese authorities and their Internet links closed down.

When you have some actual evidence to back this up let me know.

Well the WHO is worried and even though where ever they go they clamp down on information I trust their assessmentis more accurate than yours especially as they underplay risks pubically.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200601/s1549619.htm

Bird flu experts meeting in Beijing warn there is no time to lose in battling a disease that has killed almost 80 people since 2003.

snip
"H5N1 is primarily an animal disease," Margaret Chan, the World Health Organisation's (WHO) top pandemic expert, said.

"However, given its expanding geographical scope and that H5N1 is endemic in some countries, our assessment is that the risk of pandemic is great.
"Timing is unpredictable and the severity is uncertain."

Scientists fear it is only a matter of time before the H5N1 strain mutates into a pandemic form that passes easily between people.

Though WHO has been somewhat given to overblown statements by some of their staff...but the base conclusion, reached on the basis of evidence, is that the virus has not mutated. That is WHO's conclusion right now. And I trust that conclusion

I have never said that this should not be taken seriously. WHat I hate is people making unwarranted conclusions with absolutely no evidence, and quoting people who are using this situation for their own publicity.

I also do not think it is helpful to exclude information that shows progress has been made, or the situation is not as it has been portrayed in the media. To simply deny the fact that there have been no new outbreaks in Vietnam in over a month and no disease in humans since Novemnber is not helpful. That fact is a positive development, and the world could learn from their example. The fact that there is good statistical evidence that the disease is not as deadly as feared is a positive development. The fact that Turkey is taking this seriously now and is aggresively culling their flocks is a positive development. WHO officials also believe there is still time to prevent the spread, and is taking steps to achieve that, and that is a positive development.

And I think the current pandemic rating(3) WHO gives the situation is right on target.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v439/n7074/full/439248a.html
Alarms ring over bird flu mutations
The same sample also contained a mutation at position 153 of the haemoagglutinin protein, Nature has learned. Cheng says this information was not included in WHO statements, because "it is not clear what role this particular change plays".

snip
The Turkey strains are the first in which the polymerase and receptor-binding mutations have been found together. They could make it easier for humans to catch the virus from poultry. But they might also favour human-to-human transmission. This is because the polymerase change helps the virus to survive in the cooler nasal regions of the respiratory tract, and the haemoagglutinin mutation encourages the virus to target receptors in the nose and throat, rather than lower down in the lungs. The virus is thought to be more likely to spread through droplets coughed from the nose and throat than from infections lower down.

From the same article

"The same sample also contained a mutation at position 153 of the haemoagglutinin protein, Nature has learned. Cheng says this information was not included in WHO statements, because "it is not clear what role this particular change plays".

"Hay points out, however, that it is difficult to predict how the mutations will actually influence the virus's behaviour. He adds that just two changes are unlikely to create efficient human-to-human transmission on their own."

It is important to add that the apparent lethality of the disease is thought to be from its infection in the lungs. An infection in the throat or nasal cavity, though easier to spread, is also less deadly.

It is also important to note that mutations have been seen before and are not a predictor of a change in the course of the disease.

and birds fly and can contaminate large areas...

Cross your fingers this comes back neg.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/KAR824766.htm
SULAIMANIYA, Iraq, Jan 18 (Reuters) - Health officials in northern Iraq have sent samples to Jordan for testing for the bird flu virus H5N1 after a 14-year-old girl died in the city of Sulaimaniya, the regional health minister said on Wednesday.

The girl died on Tuesday after falling ill 15 days ago in her home town of Raniya, close to the Turkish and Iranian borders, Mohammed Khashnow told Reuters. A central government health official in Baghdad confirmed a team was investigating.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4623336.stm


Iraq has ordered tests to confirm what may be the country's first case of bird flu, following the death of a girl in the northern city of Sulaymaniyah.
The teenage girl from a town near the border with Turkey and Iran died at a hospital in the city, 15 days after falling ill, officials said.

Tests are being carried out in Jordan to see whether the girl died from the lethal H5N1 strain of the virus.
snip...

Mr Khasnow told the agency the rest of the girl's family are in good health and do not work in the poulty business.

Well at least they are not taking any chances...

Girl's death sparks bird flu fears
Wed 18 Jan 2006

Girl's death sparks bird flu fears
Iraq and the World Health Organisation are investigating whether a teenage girl who died of a severe lung infection had contracted the deadly bird flu virus, officials have said.

The girl lived in the town of Raniya, just north of a reservoir in Kurdistan that is a stopover for migratory birds from Turkey, the site of a recent bird flu outbreak. If she did have the virus, it would be the first reported case in the country.


A bird flu outbreak in Iraq would be extremely difficult to control given the government's severe lack of resources, disorganisation after the 2003 US-led invasion and the continued insurgency in the country. Kurdistan at least has an infrastructure that functions relatively well and has not seen the worst of recent violence.

snip
A delegation of four doctors from the World Health Organisation visited and took blood samples from the girl and some dead birds, said Dr. Nejim Aldeen Hassan, director of the Kurdistan Health Ministry. He stressed that the steps were preliminary and there were no confirmation that the girl had died of bird flu.

snip

Kurdish officials have begun to burn and bury dead birds, as well as kill any migratory birds they capture, Kurdistan Health Minister Mohammed Khoshnow said.

Naji said a team of experts from the Health Ministry and the Agriculture Ministry were headed to Sulaimaniyah, where the girl was taken before she died, to investigate. A health official in Sulaimaniyah, Sherko Abdellah, said an initial autopsy found no evidence of bird flu in the girl but blood samples have been sent to Amman, Jordan for more tests.

However, in Jordan, a leading Health Ministry official, Dr. Adel Balbeisi, said that the Jordanian laboratories had not received any blood samples from Iraq and have not been told that samples would be sent to them.

This article: http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=88152006

case in another Turkish city... child was ill 14 days and they still don't know what the freak killed her... they should be testing everybody...

Jordan is doing the testing whats up with that???

Looks to me like there is a grab for information on the virus for a country to get a jump on making the vaccine...

Just trying to keep the info together...
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/COL042531.htm

Iraq health minister says dead teenager had bird flu


SULAIMANIYA, Iraq, Jan 30 (Reuters) - An Iraqi girl who died on Jan. 17 in the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniya, had bird flu, Iraq's health minister said on Monday, despite the World Health Organisation (WHO) having initially ruled that out.

"The test of Tijan's blood emphasised that she had bird flu from the kind that kills humans," Health Minister Abdul Muttalib Mohammed Ali told a news briefing in Sulaimaniya, referring to the teenager, Tijan Abdel-Qader.

Dr Shirko Abdullah, manager of health department in Sulaimaniya, told Reuters: "The (Iraqi) health minister based his remarks on a report he received from a Cairo laboratory that indicated that the blood samples had H5N1."

"We have been told by the Iraqi Health Ministry that the result was positive for H5N1," said WHO spokeswoman Maria Cheng in Geneva

http://www.chinapost.com.tw/i_latestdetail.asp?id=34621
A 5-year-old boy infected with the lethal H5N1 strain of bird flu battled for his life in a hospital in eastern Turkey on Wednesday, while clinics elsewhere admitted at least two other sick children for treatment against possible bird flu.

snip

In the southeastern province of Mus, local authorities were investigating the suspicious death of a 2-year-old girl, Berfin Alkan, who died some three weeks ago after coming into contact with a cock which the family later ate, Kenan Akbulat, a local health official, said by telephone.

The girl's 15-year-old sister, Nese, was currently hospitalized with flu-like symptoms in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir, Akbulat said. Her samples were being tested, and she was reported to be in stable condition.

snip
On Tuesday, preliminary tests detected the deadly strain in a 4½-year-old child, whose gender was not immediately released. The child was from Dogubayazit _ the hometown of all four of the children who have died. Samples from the child, who was in intensive care, were being sent to a WHO laboratory in Britain for independent confirmation.


Among those getting treatment were three other children with bird flu symptoms in Istanbul, where Europe and Asia meet at the Bosporus Strait. Officials were waiting to see if tests confirmed that they, too, were infected with H5N1, which would bring the virus in humans right to Europe's doorstep.

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
http://www.curevents.com/vb/showthread.php?t=35518&page=2&pp=40
sPost from Oric residing in Turkey
Update : One suspect case, a child, dies on the way to the hospital

Atatürk Üniversitesi Tıp Fakültesi'nden Prof. Dr. Akın Aktaş, kuş gribi şüphesiyle hastanelerine sevk edilen bir çocuğun yaşamını yitirdiğini söyledi.

Aktaş, AA muhabirine yaptığı açıklamada, Muş'un Bulanık İlçesi'nden zatürree hastalığına yakalandığı düşünülerek Erzurum'un Karaçoban Devlet Hastanesi'ne kaldırılan S.A'nın (11), kuş gribi şüphesiyle hastanelerine sevk edildiği sırada yolda hayatını
kaybettiğini ifade etti.

Çocuğun cesedinin hastanenin morguna kaldırıldığını belirten Aktaş, kesin ölüm nedenini belirmek üzere çocuğun cesedinden alınan numunenin tetkik için Ankara'ya gönderileceğini bildirdi.

Aktaş, tahlil sonuçları belli olana kadar çocuğun cesedinin hastane morgunda tutulacağını ifade etti.

A child from Bulanik, Mus S.A (11) with pnemonia has been sent to the University hospital of Erzurum with Bird Flu suspicion. He unfortunately died on the way. There will be an autopsy.


snip

<snip>
The increasing reports of human bird flu cases are worrisome, but they don't necessarily indicate that a pandemic is at hand, says internist Marc Siegel, a professor of medicine at the New York University School of Medicine. There has been no evidence of human-to-human transmission, which would be the beginning of a pandemic," he says.

One reason more cases are being reported, he says, is that doctors in affected countries are on high alert: "Since we're now looking for them, it's not surprising we find them."

"Many more people might have contracted the virus, but they are going undetected because they're not very sick, Siegel says. In that case, "we're overstating the lethality" of the virus, he says. "We're only looking at cases of people who get sick."

(This point is bolstered by the recent Swedish study in Vietnam giving strong statistical evidence that the bird flu, while more common, may be far less deadly than feared.)

Dr. Siegel also goes on to point out that the risk in the U.S. is quite low as there are no "...regular migratory bird pathways from Asia to the United States." The occasional bird may make it's way into Alaska, but poses a very minimal threat to bird populations in the U.S.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2006-01-17-bird-flu_x.htm


It is also good news that Vietnam, previously the most affected country in Asia, has reported no outbreaks in over a month, and no human infection since November. This of course may change, but does show that well coordinated efforts to eradicate the disease do work.

The increasing reports of human bird flu cases are worrisome



they don't necessarily

Many more people might have contracted the virus,(how do the frick we know that have we tested them and then bumpup the stats on CONFIRMED BIRD FLU)(He answers his own stupid statement) but they are going undetected because they're not very sick,(Maybe they don't have it Idiot) Siegel says. In that case, "we're overstating the lethality" of the virus

I'm sure the doctors in 1918 said the same thing so those soldiers marched on those boats for WWI...

Of course cases of Bird Flu are worrisome...to criticize him for pointing that out is insipid. It is the sign of a good scientist to qualify his statements as there is always the possiblity of further study changing what is understood.

As I have pointed out, and has been published, there are credible indications that the Bird Flu is not as deadly as had been feared, including a very credible statistical study of over 45,000 Vietnamese citizens in the hardest hit areas of that country. It would be fairly ludicrous to believe that every person who contracted it had been hospitalized. Every influenza virus presents in this way. The thing that needs to be understood is how many have actually been infected. Of course a serological study needs to be performed.

And to compare the situation in 1918 to today displays an astonishing lack of historical perspective. The nature of infectuous disease was only just being understood..no access to anti-virals, no access to anti-biotics, soldiers crammed together like sardines in squalid trenches with no sanitation, no access to health care, and an inadequate diet, no formal system for rapid communication of new outbreaks, and no attempt to isolate ill soldiers. Not to mention a war-weary and hungry European population, devastated by 3 years of war. None of these conditions come close to being the reality today.

And if by your last statement you believe the government would purposely distort the numbers of those infected to maintain our presence in Iraq, or for some other nefarious purpose, there is simply no credible evidence to back up that kind of assertion.

snip
"H5N1 is primarily an animal disease," Margaret Chan, the World Health Organisation's (WHO) top pandemic expert, said.

"However, given its expanding geographical scope and that H5N1 is endemic in some countries, our assessment is that the risk of pandemic is great.
"Timing is unpredictable and the severity is uncertain."

The WHO are the ones with all the inside info (which they are keeping close to their chest).

Also another death in China and another cluster in Indonesia and we have not had Tet yet when a gazillion people will be traveling in the middle of flu season. Cross your fingers.

I did read your previous post. These warnings from WHO are the same we have been getting all along. It is their job to be worried. Occasionally one of their members has to be reined in when they make wild predictions, but on the whole they have done a good job.

I believe it is helpful to have all information, not just the most alarming. WHO also says there is no evidence of human to human spread, Vietnam has not had an outbreak in quite some time, the outbreaks in Turkey have clearly slowed, there is very good statistical evidence that the virus is not as deadly as feared, and most importantly, everyone is taking this seriously, and are taking the measures necessary to be sure (whatever the odds), that this does not spread.

On the whole, in the last several days, more good news than bad in my opinion.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4622982.stm

Donor countries meeting in China have pledged $1.9bn (£1.1bn) to fight bird flu worldwide, much more than expected.
The money includes more than $330m from the US and more than $250m from the European Union, a US official said.
snip...
Outbreaks in Indonesia and Turkey have continued, with Indonesia confirming its 14th human death on Tuesday, and Turkey diagnosing at least 21 cases of bird flu in humans.

snip...
Margaret Chan, the World Health Organization's (WHO) top pandemic expert, told the conference that the cost of acting now was "peanuts" compared to the potential losses in the event of a pandemic.

A World Bank official said nearly half the money would be spent in Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand and Laos, countries where bird populations have been seriously hit by the virus.

more...

There definitely worried...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4604406.stm

A senior director of the World Health Organization has warned that a failure to respond quickly to bird flu could have immeasurable global consequences.
Dr Shigeru Omi told a conference in Tokyo that despite the best efforts of many governments, the threat of a pandemic was continuing to grow.

The conference is seeking ways to prevent the spread of the virus.

snip...
Dr Omi said that despite recent deaths in Turkey, the main risk of a serious outbreak was focused on East Asia.

He said health officials should respond "with all the weapons at our disposal" should there be a pandemic.

"If we can achieve this rapid response, we may have a good chance of halting the spread of the virus before the situation becomes uncontrollable, or at least of slowing it down.

"But if we fail, the consequences for societies, economies and global public health could be immeasurable."

more...
Oh ya the experts are worried... real worried...

This article was published a week ago...and they are the same warnings we have been getting from WHO all along.

the 1.9 Billion dollars is in the news today... they don't give money out unless they are very worried... this was in the BBC article dated today

where does it say this article was written a week ago???

Using the link you provided...Above the title of the article

Last Updated: Thursday, 12 January 2006, 05:32 GMT


The article about 1.9B is a seperate article...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4622982.stm

Ok I have to admit I am confused...

that has Wedsnesday 18 on it

but I do see what your saying about the date...

Margaret Chan, the World Health Organization's (WHO) top pandemic expert, told the conference that the cost of acting now was "peanuts" compared to the potential losses in the event of a pandemic.

A World Bank official said nearly half the money would be spent in Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand and Laos, countries where bird populations have been seriously hit by the virus.

is this the latest news article??? it looks like it

That one is new...the announcement of the pledge amount is new today. The warnings from WHO were a week old...

trying to keep up with whats going on is not easy the News media is not making it easy ... thanks again ...

Good news...

"Another boy, 5, was also expected to recover after being in critical condition for two days, said his doctor in the eastern city of Van. "

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/01/19/ap/health/mainD8F7O5000.shtml

Showing positive results from Turkey's efforts to cull flocks...

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/01/19/ap/health/mainD8F7O5000.shtml

but this had to be done... for the whole worlds safety...

I think Turkey realized if they didn't get a handle on it that it would be economical ruin for them...

I want to commend the people keeping up on this GREAT JOB everyone...

Its fascinating to see how Global we are... the Dalai Llama said it
what touches others effects us ... this is a perfect example...

I'm glad they have people willing to do it!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4642008.stm

Governments across Europe are being too hasty in blaming the spread of avian flu on wild birds, says the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.
Many scientists say there is evidence wild birds are spreading the highly dangerous H5N1 strain of the virus.

But the RSPB says the trade in birds and the movement of poultry products is a more likely cause.
more...

Interesting...

http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/?sid=b874447d2118cf88

World Health Organization scientists are concerned that a growing number of people are turning up who have been exposed to avian flu but showed no symptoms.

The organization said four people who culled sick birds in Japan and two attendants caring for infected tigers in Thailand were found to have antibodies to the virus but showed no symptoms.

That leads to concern the H5N1 virus could be more widespread among humans than scientists are aware, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday

more...
I've been wondering about this... that girl was negative and then returns dead...

Which is why serological tests need to be performed....of course it is good news that the mortality rate isn't actually as high as the number hospitalized would indicate. On the other hand it may be more wodespread. How much will determine how much of a problem it will be, if it mutates.

Then again, if it is as widespread as this may suggest, then the virus has had even more chance to mutate and still hasn't, leading to the possibility that this particular strain cannot make the correct mutation.

antibodies against it but the down side they may the carrier...

Keeping our fingers crossed...

http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/redir.php?jid=9d0f914814d45ece&cat=a1e025da3c02ca7c

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - Alaska, the resting spot for many migratory birds from Asia, will be the target of expanded tests to detect whether bird flu has reached North America, a government official said on Thursday.

Alaska is considered North America's most likely point of entry for the deadly H5N1 avian influenza, because it stands at a crossroads of wild waterfowl and shorebird migration to and from Asia.

At least 6,000 wild migrating birds will be tested from across Alaska in the spring and the fall, said Rick Kearney, who is helping run the Department of Interior's flu-testing program.

"Alaska would be that place where the virus arrives in North America and is transferred from one type of waterfowl to another and migrates to the lower 48 (states)," said Kearney, wildlife program coordinator for the U.S. Geological Survey.

more...
America's getting ready for it...

<snip
GENEVA - The World Health Organization said Thursday the bird flu virus was not responsible for the death of a 15-year-old girl in Iraq, although officials in the region said test results were not finalized.

“According to our Eastern Mediterranean office, it’s been dismissed as a case ... they got back to us that it was not avian influenza,” said WHO spokeswoman Maria Cheng.

The girl died Tuesday in a Kurdish area of northern Iraq near the border with Turkey and Iran after contracting a severe lung infection. Her hometown of Raniya is just north of a reservoir that is a stopover for migratory birds from Turkey, the site of a recent bird flu outbreak.
<snip>


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10901751/

http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/?sid=5a62110d1addadc5

Mutations of the bird flu virus have reportedly been found in a flu patient in Turkey but it's not yet known if the mutated virus might cause a human pandemic.

The journal Nature reported the discovery of the virus last week and the World Health Organization said it is monitoring the situation.

It's one isolate from a single virus from Turkey, WHO spokeswoman Maria Cheng said in Geneva, USA Today reported Monday. One mutation found suggests the virus might be more inclined to bind to human cells rather than animal cells, Cheng said. If we started to see a lot more samples from Turkey with this mutation and saw the virus changing, we'd be more concerned.
more...
Who is still working on it...

The inpatients number has reached 43.
From the start of the disease, 587 people applied to the hospital, thinking they have bird flu virus.
119 have been treated on an outpatient basis (probably because they've been given tamiflu, probably because they have been in contact with sick/dead chickens - zk). 43 people, 31 of them children, are in-patient.

(plus a family of seven admitted today with suspected bf)


Van'da kuş gribi şüphelisi 43'e yükseldi
23 Ocak 2006
A.A.

Yüzüncü Yıl Üniversitesi (YYÜ) Tıp Fakültesi Araştırma Hastanesi'nde kuş gribi şüphesiyle tedavi görenlerin sayısının 43'e ulaştığı bildirildi.

YYÜ Tıp Fakültesi Araştırma Hastanesi Başhekimi Doç. Dr. Hüseyin Avni Şahin, AA muhabirine yaptığı açıklamada, çeşitli tarihlerde 587 kişinin kuş gribi şüphesiyle hastanelerine başvuruda bulunduğunu, bunlardan 119'unun ayakta koruyucu tedavi aldığını söyledi. Şahin, 31'i çocuk 43 kişinin ise kuş gribi şüphesiyle tedavi altında bulunduğunu ifade etti.

http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/gundem/3....asp?m=1&gid=69

its like there has been a shut down of some sort...

Dr osterholm will be on it. It will be my first time watching her show.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4643636.stm


A 29-year-old woman, surnamed Cao, was in a critical condition in hospital in Chengdu, south-western China, the health ministry said.

It said she had tested positive for the deadly H5N1 virus on 17 January.

China is seen as a potential flashpoint for a human pandemic, because it has the world's largest poultry population
more...