Five more infected with bird flu in Turkey

DOGUBAYAZIT, Turkey (AP) -- Preliminary tests showed five more people have been infected with the deadly H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus in Turkey, a Health Ministry official said Monday. The new results raise the number of human cases in Turkey to 15. Not all have been confirmed yet by the World Health Organization.

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In addition, more than 60 people with flu-like symptoms who had come in close contact with fowl had been hospitalized around the country by Monday and were undergoing tests, officials said.

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"It's clear that the virus is well established in the region," Rodier said. "The front line between children and animals, particularly backyard poultry, is too large," he said, adding that contact between poultry and people must be minimized.

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The boys in Ankara - aged 5 and 2 - caught the virus while playing with gloves their father had used to handle two dead wild ducks outside Ankara. An 8-year-old girl hospitalized in Van with what Turkish labs showed was H5N1 apparently contracted the virus by hugging and kissing dead chickens.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/T/TURKEY_BIRD_FLU?SITE=AZMES&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Although transmission to humans seems to still be dependent upon close contact with infected birds, >60 infections in so short a time might suggest that the transmission efficiency is improving. Human infections are simple probabalistic events-- there's nothing magic about the bird-virus-human interaction except for the sheer frequency of opportunities-- so increased bird-human transmission efficiency could be a belwhether for lateral transmission between humans.

It must be a daunting task to try and educate so many rural people about the danger. And many just won't take it seriously. I saw some TV interviews of people in Asia, and they came right out and said they didn't really believe the warnings. Not just rural farmers, but city people too.

I'll be laying awake tonite, thinking about that poor little girl hugging and kissing dead chickens. And doing the multiplication in my head.

...a distractions, seems to have fallen off the television screen.

It sleeps with the Anthrax terrorist.

The mortality rate seems to have dropped slightly - It's down to 53% (average for all cases) from 70-odd a few months ago...

(Both figures based on confirmed reported cases, so may have lots of room for error)