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| Europe | |
| Turkey braces for bird flu battle as tests confirm lethal strain | |
| 2005-10-13 | |
ANKARA - Turkey braced Thursday for a possibly prolonged battle against bird flu after tests confirmed that the virus found in a northwestern village was caused by a lethal strain that has killed more than 60 people in Asia. The news of the test result was broken in Brussels by the European Union's health and consumer protection commissioner Markos Kyprianou, who said that the tests indicated "a direct relationship with viruses recently found in Russia, Mongolia, and China." He said the virus was likely to have also spread into Romania.
"We received the results of the tests. It is the H5N1 strain," agriculture ministry spokesman Faruk Demirel told AFP. "From the very beginning we acted in line with the worst-case scenario, assuming that it was the H5N1," he said. "That's why thousands of fowl were slaughtered." Turkish Health Minister Recep Akdag said the rapid reaction had allowed the virus to be contained, and urged Turks, who have run out to pharmacies to buy flu vaccines, not to panic. "The well-prepared and timely intervention of the agriculture ministry has brought the bird flu case ... under control," Akdag told reporters here. "Naturally, our country has to be cautious, careful and ready (for a possible pandemic), but there is nothing beyond that at the moment," he said. The virus was found in a turkey farm in the village of Kiziksa and is believed to have been brought by migratory birds attracted to a nearby nature reserve during their journey south to Africa. A senior agriculture official said the examination of other suspicious cases reported by citizens had turned out to be negative. He warned, however, that Turkey would remain under protracted threat because it is situated on a major route for migratory birds. "All the routes of migratory birds carry risk for us," Beytullah Okay told NTV television. "We cannot change the route of those birds ... They will continue to pass from our country." Avian influenza primarily affects birds, but scientists have warned that millions of people around the world could die if the virulent H5N1 form of the virus crosses with human flu strains to become highly contagious among people. Officials said earlier Thursday they had nearly completed a cull of poultry in Kiziksa. Some 8,500 animals -- turkeys, chicken, ducks, geese and pigeons -- have been gassed in a three-kilometre (1.9-mile) quarantine zone around the village, where the authorities started to disinfect large swathes of land. Turkey says no human cases have been reported so far. The health ministry has ordered fresh stocks on the anti-influenza drug Tamiflu in a bid to prevent a flu pandemic. The ministry has contacted the Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche for an import of one million boxes of the drug, Turan Buzgan, responsible for the ministry's basic health services department, told the Milliyet daily Thursday. "We have reached a preliminary agreement for the initial purchase of some 500,000 doses," Buzgan said. Panic has gripped Turks since the outbreak in Kiziksa, with many rushing off to buy Tamiflu, considered to be the most effective drug against bird flu. A total of 28,000 boxes -- out of an estimated 55,000 available in the country -- were sold since the weekend. | |
| Posted by:Steve |