ANKARA, 16 October 2005 — Turkey still risks having to deal with a bird flu epidemic despite official assurances that the danger is over, veterinary experts said yesterday, warning that the threat will grow early next year when wild birds start migrating again.
The warning came as officials insisted that quick government reaction had eliminated the danger of an epidemic after the first bird flu case in Turkey was detected in a poultry farm in the northwestern province of Balikesir last week.
The H5N1 virus, which has killed some 60 people in Southeast Asia since 2003 and whose presence in Romania was confirmed Saturday, is believed to have been carried by birds on their migration to Africa breaking their journey at a nature reserve near the farm.
“The risk of disease persists all across the country” which is crossed by three major migration routes, the head of the Turkish Veterinary Union, Mustafa Altuntas, told the Anatolia news agency. “Caution should be at the highest level, particularly in regions with wetlands. “In the spring ... birds which have not been infected will contract the disease while migrating from the south to the north. Therefore, the risk will be higher in the spring,” Altuntas said.
The H5N1 strain does not spread easily between people but humans who come in contact with sick birds can contract the disease. Scientists say millions of people around the world could die if the virulent strain of the bird flu crosses with human strains to become highly contagious among people. The Turkish government sought to calm an increasingly nervous public as poultry meat sales plunged dramatically and people rushed to pharmacies in search of anti-viral drugs.
Senior Health Ministry official Ramazan Uzun gave assurances that the virus had been contained in the quarantined village of Kiziksa, where the outbreak was reported last week. He explained that the incubation period of the virus was between two and four days. “Since the disease appeared last week, the incubation period is now completed. If there were any infection it would have become apparent by now,” Uzun told Anatolia. “There is no danger from now on, neither for animals nor for people.”
Nine people who had come into contact with pigeons that died in the western town of Turgutlu were kept under observation for several hours Friday, but were discharged after doctors found nothing worrying about their condition.
Officials in two provinces in eastern Turkey were investigating the suspicious deaths of hens, but stressed that initial examination did not point to bird flu, Anatolia reported.
In Agri, about 1,000 hens died yesterday, but experts suggest they might have perished because of a lengthy journey from western Turkey in bad transportation conditions, Governor Yusuf Yavascan told Anatolia.
In Sanliurfa, the authorities have looked into the deaths of hens in the hamlet of Kinik over the past two weeks and found no initial sign of avian flu, local sub-governor Ahmet Odabas said. Both officials said the definite cause of the deaths will be known after laboratory tests.
In Kiziksa, officials said they had completed the slaughter of fowl in the quarantine area within a three-kilometer radius of the contaminated farm and that some 10,000 winged animals had been gassed, Anatolia reported. The Turkish poultry industry, meanwhile, sounded alarm over plummeting sales, warning that the sector might soon find itself on the brink of bankruptcy.
“Consumption in the country has fallen by more than 50 percent because people are scared to eat poultry meat and eggs... The atmosphere of panic has suddenly plunged the sector into a crisis,” the Union of Farming Chambers said, calling for calm and prudence. “If the situation continues like this, it will be hard to find a company standing on its feet after 45 days,” Yuce Canoler from the Poultry Producers Union told the Sabah newspaper.
