Turkish Family Suffers Second Bird Flu Death

The sister of the Turkish boy who was the first person outside China and south-east Asia to die of bird flu also died of the disease today.

Fatma Kocyigit, 15, died in a hospital in the eastern city of Van, four days after the death of her 14-year-old brother, Mehmet Ali, the Anatolia news agency reported.

Her 11-year-old sister, Hulya, who is also suspected of having bird flu, was in a serious condition, according to doctors.

Turkish officials said yesterday that the cause of Mehmet's death was the H5N1 strain of avian flu. He died on Sunday in hospital in Van. Doctors originally said he had died of pneumonia.

The two deaths in Turkey are the first outside China and south-east Asia, where more than 70 people have fallen victim to the disease since 2003.

The virus remains hard for people to catch, but fears remain that it could mutate into a form easily passed among humans in a pandemic that could kill millions.

Ahmet Faik Oner, a doctor at the hospital in Van, near the Iranian and Armenian borders, said that seven other people were being treated with similar symptoms to those that the two victims suffered. It was not known whether any had bird flu.

Fatma's sister, Hulya, was in a particularly bad condition, Dr Oner told Anatolia.

The hospital had tightened up its precautionary measures and closed its children's department to other patients.

All those receiving treatment in Van came from the district of Dogubeyazit on the Armenian border, the health minister, Recep Akdag, said. People in the remote, rural area live mainly from raising poultry and other livestock.

Turkey, on the path of migratory birds that are believed to spread the virus, has had two outbreaks of the highly contagious disease among poultry in the past three months.

Mr Akdag said Turkey had a pandemic plan ready.

"There is no need to be too alarmist," he said, adding that Turkey had enough stocks of medicine to cope with an outbreak. But he warned people, especially those in close contact with poultry, not to touch sick animals.

Birds in Turkey, Romania, Russia and Croatia have recently tested positive for H5N1. Dogubeyazit is some 40 miles from the town of Aralik where Turkish authorities last week said some chickens had tested positive for an H5 variant of bird flu. Authorities said the virus was probably brought by birds migrating from the Caucasus regions.

· Vietnam, the country worst hit by bird flu, has lifted the ban on the import of processed poultry it imposed late last year.

The government would also consider lifting the ban on the import of live poultry from the countries with no outbreaks soon, the army newspaper Quan Doi Nhan Dan reported.

The agriculture ministry ordered a ban on all imports of poultry, exotic birds and poultry products between November 1 2005 and March 31 2006 to prevent the virus spreading after a new wave of bird flu outbreaks in October.

Vietnam, where bird flu has killed 42 people since the H5N1 virus first arrived in late 2003, has had no human cases since November.

But experts say there could be more infections as poultry consumption resumes ahead of the January 28-February 2 lunar new year festival.