The H5N1 avian influenza virus has killed 74 people in East Asia and is now approaching Europe. In eastern Turkey, a third child has died from bird flu, while doctors are fighting for the lives of more than 20 patients (mostly adolescents) suspected of bird flu. The 11-year-old girl who died was the sister of a 14-year-old boy and a 15-year-old girl who died a week earlier. The children lived in a remote rural area of eastern Turkey near the border with Armenia and Iran and contacted the birds, as did the victims of the disease in East Asia. According to the doctors, the dead children played with sick birds. The six-year-old brother of the deceased children was also treated in hospital for a similar illness. The parents of these children remain in good health.

The deadly H5N1 virus has not yet been transmitted from person to person, but it is feared that due to mutations the virus will acquire such capacity. Experts believe that a pandemic among people can cost millions of lives and have enormous economic costs.

WHO has conditionally confirmed the diagnosis of avian influenza in deceased children. The expected results of further studies in one of the British laboratories in the near future will be communicated to WHO and the Turkish authorities. A group of experts from WHO and European countries will travel to Turkey to investigate the causes of the infection. Obviously, the dead were in contact with the same source of infection, but experts will try to determine if this was the first case of person-to-person transmission, which could be the start of an epidemic.

In a hospital in Van, where three children died, 23 people are currently suspected of avian flu. Fifteen patients are prescribed bed rest, 1 patient is in critical condition. The other 8 patients are in the ward. Most of the patients are children, most of them from eastern Turkey.

In the town of Daiyarbakir, hundreds of kilometers southwest of the area currently affected, another child is being examined for possible bird flu.

In Dogubayazit, where the dead children lived, a frightened population gathered in the agricultural management building to hand over bags of dead birds and check their poultry. According to a local trader, everyone is afraid of the death of children, the population gets rid of poultry and nobody dares to eat poultry meat. Staff wearing masks and protective clothing take the bags to a landfill in the country, throw them in pits, fill them with lime and bury them. Currently, 3,500 birds have been killed in the region; In total, it is planned to destroy around 5000 birds.