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BAGHDAD, Jan 23,
2006 (AFP) - The World Health Organisation has
confirmed that a girl who died in Iraqi Kurdistan
last week did not succumb to bird flu, a Kurdish
official said Monday.
"The tests conducted at the WHO laboratory in Amman
have confirmed that she did not suffer from bird
flu," said Mohammad Khuchanu, a senior official with
the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the party
administering the city of Sulaimaniyah where the
girl died.
The test samples were sent to Jordan last week after
Shanjin Abdel Qader, 14, showed signs of avian flu.
"The test analysis did not show that the girl had
the H5N1 virus," Khuchanu said.
Initial tests carried out on Qader were also
negative, but samples were sent to Amman for further
analysis.
Abdel Qader came from the town of Raniya in northern
Kurdistan, close to the Turkish and Iranian borders.
Turkey, which has 21 cases of the flu, is the only
country outside the Far East that has reported
fatalities from the virus.
Health officials in Iraq's three Kurdish provinces,
which border Turkey and Iran, say a number of
measures are being taken to stop the spread of the
virus. These include decontaminating trucks crossing
the border, banning the import of Turkish poultry
and prohibiting the sale of live chickens inside
Kurdistan.
There is also a major public awareness campaign
urging people to take precautions, including cooking
instructions to minimize the risk of infection.
Iraq's Kurdish provinces are a major poultry
producing region supplying chickens and eggs for
much of the rest of the country.
Scientists fear that the more the virus spreads, the
greater the chance H5N1 will mutate into a form that
is easily transmissible between humans. This could
spark a global pandemic that could claim millions of
lives.
The toll from the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu has
climbed to 78 people worldwide.
AFP
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