Turkey said on Friday that a third child from the same family had now died of bird flu, as the government came under fire for failing to prevent the spread of the deadly disease that has killed scores in Southeast Asia and China.
The latest victim, 11-year-old Hulya Kocyigit, died early on Friday in a hospital in the eastern city of Van after spending several days in intensive care, said Huseyin Avni Sahin, the chief doctor at the hospital.
Her death comes a day after her 15-year-old sister Fatma succumbed to the disease in the same hospital. Their 14-year-old brother, Muhammet Ali, perished on Sunday. Fifteen other people, including a fourth member of the Kocyigit family, are being treated in Van for bird-flu like symptoms, Sahin said.
Three of the patients were in intensive care and one was in a critical condition, he added.
It was not yet clear whether the deaths were caused by the H5N1 strain of bird flu blamed for the other fatalities. But a spokeswoman in Geneva for the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday, following the first two deaths, that the strain considered highly dangerous to humans was the likely culprit.
If that is the case, the deaths would mark the westward spread of a virus that has killed more than 70 people in Southeast Asia and China since late 2003, nearly 40 of them in 2005 alone.
The Kocyigit family is from the remote town of Dogubeyazit, near Turkey's borders with Iran and Armenia, where many families depend on poultry breeding for their livelihoods and live close to their animals.
The Kocyigit children were hospitalized last week after coming into contact with chicken slaughtered after falling sick.
According to press reports, the siblings played with the heads of dead chickens.
Currently humans can contract bird flu only if they come into close contact with infected birds, but scientists fear that millions around the world could die if the virus crosses with human strains of flu to become highly contagious.
Dogubeyazit is less then 100 kilometers (60 miles) from the town of Aralik, which was quarantined last week after poultry there tested positive for H5 bird flu.
Officials were still awaiting the results of further tests being conducted in London to determine whether any of the thousands of birds slaughtered in the village suffered from the H5N1 strain.
As veterinary experts swooped down on both towns, culling poultry and disinfecting the area, Turkish agriculture minister Mehdi Eker on Thursday confirmed at least four new outbreaks of bird flu in poultry in the eastern provinces of Igdir and Erzurum, and the southeastern province of Sanliurfa.
The Turkish press ran angry headlines on Friday, accusing the government of not acting fast enough to contain the disease.
"Who will account for this?" asked the mass circulation Hurriyet daily on its front page. "It is spreading!" said the liberal Radikal daily while left-leaning Cumhuriyet said: "The fear grows".
Faced with accusations of failing to inform the public of the threat in time, Turkish health minister Recep Akdag defended his ministry's position late on Thursday, arguing in a live interview with the NTV news channel that they were avoiding any moves that might lead to public panic.
Turkish officials initially blamed the deaths in Van on pneumonia.
The first case of H5N1 in birds in the country was uncovered in October at a turkey farm in Kiziksa, a village in the western province of Balikesir abutting a wildlife reserve that is a well-known stopover for migratory birds blamed for transporting the virus.
Officials announced on December 9 that they had eradicated the disease.
Third bird flu victim in Turkey, media outraged
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