Originally published February 12 2006
Fourth death from bird flu confirmed in Turkey
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Turkey has announced that Fatma Oczana is the country's fourth bird flu fatality.
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 deadly H5N1 strain had reached the crossroads of Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
"The test results of Fatma Ozcan who died yesterday were found to be positive," the Health Ministry's bird flu coordination center said in a statement carried by state-run news agency Anatolian.
Indonesia said a girl had also died at the weekend of the H5N1 virus.
The World Health Organization (WHO) says the virus has killed 79 people since 2003 and infected nearly 150, but it has yet to confirm it was to blame for the Indonesian girl's death or two of the Turkish cases.
Turkey can still prevent bird flu from becoming firmly established among its flocks, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization FAO said on Monday, striking a more optimistic note than it did a few days ago.
"We are still in time to be able to prevent the virus from being endemic in Turkey if the Turkish veterinary services have enough resources," Juan Lubroth, senior FAO animal health officer, told a news conference in Rome.
The FAO expressed fears that the virus could take hold in neighboring countries such as Georgia, Iran, Syria and Armenia.
The World Bank aims to raise $1.2 billion to fight bird flu, its vice president Jim Adams said on Monday, on the eve of a global donor conference in Beijing tasked with securing the resources needed to combat the deadly virus.
The virus is already endemic across parts of Asia and scientists fear the H5N1 strain could mutate from a disease that affects mostly birds into one that can pass easily between people, leading to a human pandemic.
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