Iraq
says dead teenager had bird flu By Twana Osman
A 14-year-old girl who died in northern Iraq this month had
bird flu, Iraq's health minister said on Monday, despite the
World Health Organization having initially discounted the
virus as the cause of death.
A WHO official said preliminary results from a U.S. military
laboratory in Cairo showed the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus,
but it was urgently seeking further tests at a British laboratory.
If confirmed it would be the first known human case of the
avian virus in Iraq, whose northern provinces border Turkey,
where more than 20 people have already been diagnosed with
H5N1.
"In Iraq the authorities will move as if it is confirmed
... A mission from the WHO will travel to Iraq to assess the
situation," said Zuhair Halaj, head of communicable diseases
at the WHO office in Cairo.
So far there are no confirmed cases among poultry in Iraq,
but the WHO says the emergence now of a possible human case
underlines the need for better surveillance.
Iraq has banned poultry imports from Turkey, but officials
admit the rebel violence and anarchy that have impoverished
Iraq, leaving its frontiers porous and sanitary regulations
unenforceable, will make it hard to control an epidemic.
The health minister of Iraq's largely autonomous northern
Kurdistan region, where the girl lived, said all poultry in
and around the city of Sulaimaniya would be destroyed in a
bid to prevent the spread of the virus.
The girl's uncle died last Friday, also suffering from respiratory
problems. Samples from him have been also sent to Britain
for testing.
MIGRATORY BIRDS
Bird flu is endemic in poultry in parts of Asia and can infect
people who come into close contact with infected birds. It
has killed at least 83 people since late 2003 and recently
spread to Turkey, where local officials blame it for the death
of four children.
Scientists say the H5N1 virus is mutating steadily and may
eventually acquire the changes it needs to be easily transmitted
from human to human. Because people lack any immunity to it,
it could sweep the world in weeks or months, killing millions.
Fourteen-year-old Tijan Abdel-Qader died in a hospital in
Sulaimaniya on January 17 after being brought from her home
in Raniya, close to Lake Dukan, a magnet for many migratory
birds.
"The test of Tijan's blood emphasized that she had bird
flu from the kind that kills humans," Iraqi Health Minister
Abdul Muttalib Mohammed Ali told a news briefing in Sulaimaniya.
The WHO said on January 19 the teenager did not have bird
flu. A WHO spokeswoman said at the weekend the statement had
been based on tests carried out only in Iraq.
WHO spokeswoman Maria Cheng said testing for bird flu was
complex and it would not be the first time that first diagnoses
had been revised.
Doctors usually test sputum, looking for the virus in lung
secretions when they test for bird flu but it is possible
to test the blood for antibodies against the virus a few days
after infection.
The WHO's Halaj said the U.S. military laboratory had "done
the preliminary test and it was H5N1 ... the next stage is
another test which isolates the virus."
IRAQIS ALARMED
News of the positive result alarmed residents of Baghdad,
who feared it would inflict further damage on their country's
already battered economy.
"If there are more cases, the economy will deteriorate
and our lives will be greatly affected, because then we will
have to buy other foodstuffs rather than chicken and eggs.
We ask the government to protect us," said Khalid Obaisy,
42, a laborer.
Sa'ad Adnan, 45, the owner of the Kahramana chicken restaurant
said many people had already been put off eating chicken.
"This news is going to cause panic and chaos," he
said.
(Additional reporting by Omar al-Ibadi in Baghdad, Richard
Waddington in Geneva and Amil Khan in Cairo)
