DOGUBAYAZIT, Turkey, January 7 – The three teens who died this week due to the effects of the avian flu probably caught the virus by playing with dead chickens. British labs are now trying to establish which strain of the bird flu was responsible for their deaths but so far it has been established that it’s a strain from the H5 family. Experts have no doubt that the lethal H5N1 virus caused the fatal casualties.
The Turkish minister of health and the World Health Organization urge that there is no reason to believe the disease has spread from human to human, most likely the kids played together with the chickens and thus contracted the disease.
Earlier this week a 15-year old girl and her 14-year old brother died of the effects of the bird flu and now their 11-year old sibling also died due to the same cause. Measures were taken to set up a safe perimeter and dispose of all the poultry that could contribute to the spread of this disease.
These are the first deaths outside of Asia due to the avian flu. Experts still fear a global pandemic when the virus evolves into a strain that transfers from human to human.
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