Three Turks were reported to be infected with a deadly strain of bird flu in the capital, Ankara, yesterday, a new step in the westward march of the virus from its eastern Asian origins.
The first case of the virus jumping from birds to humans in western Asia emerged in Turkey last Wednesday. Three children in the remote eastern Van region died of the highly potent H5N1 strain that has killed 74 people in east Asia.
Ankara's Governor, Kemal Onal, said that two children, aged two and five, and a 60-year-old adult had been diagnosed with the infection in the capital, about 250 miles east of Istanbul.
It was reported that a five-year-old boy had also been admitted to hospital with suspected bird flu in Corum in central Turkey.
The two infected children in hospital in Ankara were brought from nearby Beypazari after contact with dead wild birds.
Their parents tested negative for the disease, doctors said. A separate family sent to hospital in Istanbul on Friday displaying bird flu symptoms also tested negative.
It seems likely the children who died in Van region also caught the virus directly from chickens. But world health authorities worry that human exposure to bird flu could lead to the emergence of a mutation allowing easier transmission between humans " and raising the prospect of a pandemic.
Moscow raised the prospect of economic damage to Turkey's vital tourist industry, warning Russians against travelling to Turkey after the human infections.
Iran, which borders the Turkish region worst affected by the outbreak, has closed one of its border crossings, forcing many Turks travelling there for this week's major Muslim holiday marking the Feast of the Sacrifice to return home.
Turkey's Prime Minister, Tayyip Erdogan, has appealed to Turks to help in a mass cull aimed at stemming the advance of the virus and promised adequate compensation to farmers and families who rely on poultry for their living.
But in the Dogubayazit district hit by the virus, local people have accused the authorities of being slow to ac, with reports of sick chickens still wandering in the streets.
The father of the three dead children in eastern Turkey, Zeki Kocyigit, 38, said they had not known bird flu was still a threat after authorities said they had successfully suppressed an outbreak among poultry in the west of the country.
'Nobody warned us ... We thought the bird flu had passed,' he said, adding that it was the custom in rural Turkey for families to kill and eat sick birds. REUTERS
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