A 14-year-old Turkish boy who was one of six people tested for bird flu has died and his sister was in a critical and worsening condition, doctors said.
Authorities were still waiting for test results and could not immediately confirm whether the boy's death on Sunday was caused by bird flu. If confirmed, it would be the country's first human fatality from the virus.
"It can't be known whether the disease is bird flu or not before the test results is announced in Ankara," Huseyin Avni Sahin, chief physician at 100th Yil Hospital in the country's southeastern Van province, told the Anatolia news agency.
Authorities were expecting preliminary test results yesterday. Four other children and a 35-year-old woman suffering from fever and pneumonia-like symptoms have also been tested for the bird flu virus over the past two days.
Birds in Turkey, Romania, Russia and Croatia recently tested positive for the deadly H5N1 strain in birds, but no human cases have been detected.
The 14-year-old boy, Mehmet Ali Kocyigit, had been on life support after his brain functions stopped, Sahin said. Authorities said they would keep the boy's body at the hospital's morgue as a precaution until after the test results, Anatolia reported.
The boy was among two brothers and two sisters between six and 15 years old who were admitted to hospital on Saturday after developing high fevers, coughing and bleeding in their throats. The children helped to raise poultry on a farm and were in close contact with sick birds. They became sick after reportedly eating one of them.
Two other patients, aged 35 and five, were sent to the same hospital on Sunday, the Anatolia news agency reported, as Turkish health and security authorities gathered to coordinate a response.
One of Kocyigit's sisters, Fatma Kocyigit, was in critical condition, Sahin said.
"Two of the children's situation is critical," chief physician Huseyin Avni Sahin had said just hours beforehand. "This doesn't mean it is bird flu. Bird flu is one of the possibilities."
Sahin said it was too early to call their illness bird flu and the hospital was awaiting test results.
The World Health Organization says poultry is safe to eat in areas affected by the virus so long as it is properly cooked and handled during preparation.
Turkish authorities last week said some chickens had tested positive for an H5 variant of bird flu and placed parts of an eastern town, Aralik, near the border with Armenia, under quarantine. The sick brothers and sisters are from the town of Dogubeyazit, just 60km south of Aralik.
"Right now, there is nothing to worry about," Agriculture Minister Mehdi Eker said.
US President Donald Trump on Wednesday threatened to take action against the EU if it moves forward with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s proposal to make Canada the bloc’s first associate member. “If they do that, if I think it’s at all a hostile act; I will put very serious tariffs or stop trading with Europe on many things,” Trump told reporters en route to an event in North Carolina, calling the proposal “laughable.” “If it’s a good intention, that’s fine. If it’s a bad intention, we’ll put very heavy tariffs on Europe,” he said. Von der Leyen made the proposal
ON THE MOVE: Trump unexpectedly cut short a trip to return to the White House, while the State Department warned Americans to avoid travel to the Middle East The US on Saturday warned that hostilities between Saudi Arabia and Iran-backed Houthis could “escalate rapidly” after a missile attack targeted Riyadh for the first time since the Yemen conflict resumed. US President Donald Trump on Saturday cut short a weekend at Camp David, a secluded presidential complex in rural Maryland, to return unexpectedly to the White House. The White House gave no explanation for the early return, which comes as a new threshold was crossed in the conflict between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis, who control a large part of Yemen and are fighting government forces backed by a coalition led
The US military came close to boarding a Chinese vessel in the Middle East earlier this year based on a flawed intelligence report prepared with the help of artificial intelligence (AI), CNN said on Friday. US intelligence indicated the ship was carrying nuclear weapons-related components, leading US forces to prepare to intercept it, the broadcaster reported, citing four anonymous sources familiar with the incident. However, the operation was called off after officials determined that an AI chatbot used by an analyst had misidentified the material the ship was carrying. The report was “entirely false,” but “almost started a war,” CNN quoted one source
World leaders gather in New York this week for the UN General Assembly, bracing for US President Donald Trump’s return to the rostrum for a second year running, with talks centering on the widening conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine and the risks of artificial intelligence (AI). Nearly 130 heads of state meet with the post-World War II order under strain and with the UN itself struggling to remain relevant and weathering attacks from Trump, who has slashed the US’ contributions and withdrawn from dozens of UN bodies. Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), who last addressed the diplomatic jamboree via video
RSS