Bird flu adds fresh woe for Iraq

RANIYA, Iraq (AP) -- Battered by rampant violence and political instability, a new threat in Iraq has been confirmed -- the first case of the deadly bird flu virus in the Middle East.

 

A 15-year-old Kurdish girl who died this month had the deadly H5N1 strain, Iraq and U.N. health officials said.

The discovery has prompted a large-scale slaughter of domestic birds in the northern area where the teen died as the World Health Organization formed an emergency team to try to contain the disease's spread.

"We regretfully announce that the first case of bird flu has appeared in Iraq," Iraqi Health Minister Abdel Mutalib Mohammed told reporters Monday.

 

WHO officials confirmed the finding, though it was not immediately clear how the girl, Shangen Abdul Qader, who died on January 17 in the northern Kurdish town of Raniya, contracted the disease.

The prospect of a bird flu outbreak in Iraq is alarming because the country is gripped by armed insurgency and lacks the resources of other governments in the region. Government institutions, however, are most effective in the Kurdish-run area where the girl lived.

 

Health teams cordoned off areas in and around Raniya on Monday and began Iraq's first bird slaughter.

Policeman Khalil Khudur said he led a team that killed 3,000 birds, mainly chickens and ducks, in Sarkathan, a village of about 600 homes four miles (six kilometers) north of Raniya. Villagers and cars were also sprayed with chemicals to kill any trace of the disease.

But there were fears they might be too late.

 

Health officials are investigating the death of the girl's uncle, who lived in the same house and showed symptoms similar to bird flu.

At least two other people have been admitted to a hospital in Sulaimaniyah, 160 miles (260 kilometers) northeast of Baghdad, with similar symptoms.

President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, was briefed on efforts to protect Iraqis from the disease, according to al-Iraqiya TV.

 

The Iraqi case occurred just 60 miles (100 kilometers) from Turkey.

Dr. William Schaffner, a bird flu expert at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, said he nonetheless did not find the situation alarming.

But "it indicates this is an infection now that is well-embedded in the bird population, probably poultry and the wild bird population," he said in a telephone interview. "And we're going to continue to see infection in people who have close contact with the birds, with poultry and with waterfowl."

Human cases have generally been traced to contact with infected poultry, but scientists say migrating birds are apparently spreading the virus between poultry flocks.

Schaffner and European health officials also said it was encouraging that Turkey had not reported a new human case since January 18, indicating that aggressive steps to wipe out poultry there have paid off.

Health officials do not yet know how the Iraqi girl contracted the virus, but just north of Raniya is a reservoir used as a stopover by migratory birds from Turkey, where at least 21 cases of H5N1 have been recorded.

Mother rejects finding

 

The disease has not proved as deadly in Turkey as in East Asia -- where more than half of those infected have died -- but U.N. experts warned that did not mean the virus was becoming less dangerous.

Still, the risk of the virus spreading might not increase unless there were big clusters of cases in Turkey or other countries, indicating that the strain had become more virulent, said Angus Nicoll, of the European Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Experts fear the virus could mutate into a form spread easily among humans, triggering a pandemic capable of killing millions. A total of 85 people had died of the disease worldwide before the Iraq case was reported, according to WHO figures.

 

"It is always worrying to have a new case in a new country because it raises concerns among the public," said WHO spokesman Dick Thompson. "But we have to understand that, so far, this is just one case."

The girl's mother rejected the bird flu findings, but acknowledged that a number of her chickens had mysteriously died before her daughter's death.

"My daughter did not die from bird flu," Fatima Abdullah, 50, told The Associated Press. "She did not like chickens nor had anything to do with them. She did not take care of these birds."

Close to 1.6 million fowl had been culled so far in Turkey. Health experts said controlling an outbreak and undertaking a mass bird cull in Iraq would be difficult due the country's more limited veterinary and monitoring infrastructure.

 

Kurdistan Health Ministry official Najimuldin Hassan said thousands of domesticated birds were expected to be killed, but authorities did not know how to kill migratory birds nor were equipped to do so.

Khudur, the policeman conducting the cull in Sarkathan, complained that his team was also not properly equipped for the slaughter.

"We lack plastic boots, masks and gloves. If we tear the gloves on our hands, there are none to replace them," he said.

 

A top U.N. official pinpointed the issue -- and its financial implications on Iraqi villagers and farmers -- as the gravest one facing authorities.

"The problem comes down to funding more than anything else," Rod Kennard, who manages the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization's assistance program for Iraq, said from neighboring Jordan.

"If they have enough money in order to pay people off so that people will not be reluctant to cull their birds, it's less of an issue."