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Iraqi Kurdish girl dies with bird flu
symptons, but tests negative
18.1.2006
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ERBIL, Kurdistan-Iraq, Jan 18, 2006 (AFP) -
13h07 - A 14-year-old girl has died in Iraqi
Kurdistan after showing symptoms of bird flu,
spurring emergency measures to keep the illness at
bay although tests on the victim have so far proved
negative.
Fears are running high as over the mountains to the
north lies Turkey, the only country outside the Far
East where the H5N1 virus has killed people,
claiming five lives out of 21 cases.
Health officials in the northern city of
Sulaimaniyah Wednesday suggested the girl, Tijan
Abdel Qader, who died Tuesday, was a victim of
pneumonia rather than flu, but added they had sent
samples to Jordan for testing to be absolutely
certain.
"After she died, we did another test and we didn't
find any bird flu," said Tahseen Nameq, deputy to
the chief agricultural official of the Patriotic
Union of Kurdistan (PUK), the party administering
the city.
Qader who came from the town of Raniya, not far from
the Turkish and Iranian borders, exhibited flu-like
symptoms for about a fortnight, although the rest of
her family remained healty and tests for avian flu
proved negative.
"We are afraid and in a state of high alert in the
face of what could be a time bomb," said Azad
Ezzeddin Mulla Afandi, the chief agricultural
official for the Kurdish Democratic Party, the other
entity running the northern provinces.
"Despite all the precautions we have taken, we are
terrified that the disease will appear here," he
said.
The toll from the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu has
climbed to 78 people worldwide.
Imports of poultry from Turkey were banned in
October, while trade in live chickens in Kurdistan
itself was outlawed last week.
"Strict orders were given to poultry farmers to
install basins at the gates of their farms to
decontaminate vehicules going in and out," said
Afandi.
He said these measures are being carried out not
just in the provinces of Erbil and Dohuk, which are
under KDP control, but also in Sulaimaniyah, the
Kurdish rival run by the KDP's sometime rival, the
PUK.
The two provinces, which are close to the parts of
Turkey that have reported cases of avian flu, are
also major producers of eggs and poultry, supplying
much of the Iraqi market.
"The virus ignores borders," said Saman Halbaji,
spokesman for the KDP's health department. "The
disease could arrive with migratory birds, but
fortunately so far not a single case has been
detected" in Iraqi Kurdistan.
At a wintry frontier post, Kurdish border guards are
careful to decontaminate trucks that trundle across
the border carrying Turkish goods.
Dr Abdel Khaleq Abdel Sattar, the frontier post's
veterinarian, supervises the minute inspection of
each vehicle and its cargo to make sure no birds are
transported into the country.
"We are doing everything in our power to prevent the
spread of the virus into Kurdistan," he said.
Authorities have mobilized the media in a public
awareness campaign in their fight against bird flu
that uses television, radio and newspapers.
The message is simple and oft-repeated: in case of
avian flu symptoms, such as the onset of fever,
chills and wracking coughs, report to local health
centers.
Housewives receive instructions of their own in
radio and television messages, and are told to cook
chicken on a high heat of at least 80 degrees
Celsius (176 degrees Fahrenheit) before eating and
to wash any eggs (as well as one's hands) with soap,
according to World Health Organization guidelines.
The awareness campaign appears to be succeeding but
the fear of the flu is palpable among the people,
some of whom don't think authorities are doing
enough to prevent an outbreak.
"The measures being taken are not enough and we are
afraid the disease is going to break out," said
Salima Ali, a 39-year-old Arbil housewife.
In Erbil, shops selling live chickens have been
closed and shopkeepers have started complaining
about a drop in demand for chickens and eggs.
Officials from the KDP and the PUK have formed a
coordination committee for avian flu with the
eventual goal of creating a single executive body
for the whole northern autonomous region.
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.
AFP
MIGRATORY THREAT
Raniya is close to Lake Dukan, which draws many
migratory birds to the region and where Iraqi
officials had been taking measures to try to prevent
domestic fowl from being infected.
"The rest of the family is in good health," Khashnow
added, saying the family was not in the poultry
business.
An Iraqi Health Ministry spokesman said the
suspected case was the first such incident involving
a human death in Iraq.
"We were informed about it yesterday at noon. We
sent a team this morning to check it out. We're
expecting to hear from them this afternoon with an
initial report," said Hassan.
"They will take samples and should have an idea of
whether it is the bird flu virus by this afternoon,"
he told Reuters.
Raniya lies north of Lake Dukan, about 20 km (12
miles) west of the Iranian border, near the Iranian
city of Piranshahr. It is about 100 km (60 miles)
south of the Turkish border.
Iraq has been trying to secure porous borders with
its neighbours, particularly Syria, since 2003 to
stop the flow of foreign insurgents but with little
success. Tribes living along border areas also make
a living from smuggling goods.
Health officials say they need both money and
expertise.
Iraqi authorities say they also have no complete
records of slaughterhouses in Iraq, making their job
of monitoring any outbreak even more difficult.
The H5N1 virus has been found in wild birds and
poultry across Turkey, where four children have
died. So far, H5N1 has killed just under half of 150
or so people it has infected worldwide.
Reuters
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