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Turkish boy’s death not bird flu

Printed From: Avian Flu Talk
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Forum Name: General Discussion
Forum Description: (General discussion regarding the next pandemic)
URL: http://www.avianflutalk.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=356
Printed Date: April 27 2024 at 10:08pm


Topic: Turkish boy’s death not bird flu
Posted By: Guests
Subject: Turkish boy’s death not bird flu
Date Posted: January 02 2006 at 7:28am
A 14-year-old Turkish boy who died at the weekend was not killed by bird flu, the country's health ministry says.

The boy was initially feared to have died from the same virus that has killed more than 70 people in Asia.

Three of his siblings, who were also taken ill, have also tested negative for the disease, while tests on two others have still not been returned.

It is still not clear what did kill Mehmet Ali Kocyigit, officials said.

"The disease is not caused by bird flu or any other flu virus," Turan Buzgan, a health ministry official, said.

The hospital where the boy was on life support before he died said he had pneumonia, according to CNN-Turk television, but this was not confirmed by the ministry.

Migration path

The dead victim had been admitted to hospital on Saturday, along with his brother and two sisters, aged from six to 15, after they developed high fever, coughing, and bleeding in their throats.

The children lived on a poultry farm, where some of the birds had become sick. They reportedly became ill after eating one of them.

The eldest sister was also reported to be in critical condition.

Two other patients, aged five and 35, were also taken to hospital on Sunday, the Anatolia news agency reported.

The H5N1 strain of bird flu - which has infected and killed dozens of people in Asia - has been discovered in bird flocks in Turkey, but no human cases have yet been detected.

Turkey lies on the migration path of wild birds suspected of spreading the flu westwards from Asia.

So far the disease appears only to have infected people who live or work closely with birds, but health experts fear it could mutate and spread among human populations as easily as common influenza.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4574512.stm - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4574512.stm



Replies:
Posted By: libbyalex
Date Posted: January 02 2006 at 10:45am
So what do you all think of this? This is a big relief if it's true. What bothers me a bit is the proximity to infected birds. Anyone else thought much about this today? -- Libby

Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: January 03 2006 at 7:56am

Be careful believing, '...Boy's death not from Bird Flu'... One nasty side effect of H5N1 is death via Pneumonia thanks to the body's Cytokine Storm reaction in response to attacking the HPAI virus. Also, there is great precedence of false-negative tests for H5N1. Even the best H5N1 test is only 90 - 95% accurate. As this poor boy had all of the typical nasty symptoms of H5N1, I'd bet your next paycheck that he had H5N1 and thus died from Pneumonia. In time, it will come out that he did indeed have H5N1... as long as there is a thorough post mortum autopsy. If they cremated his body without a thorough autopsy, we will never know. But you can count on the rest of his brothers and sisters testing positive for H5N1. Their prognosis is not a good one. This exact same situation has played out several times throughout Asia. Dr. Niman at Recombinomics.com has explained this situation many times at his website. But like he so eloquently wrote, "sadly, H5N1 does not read press releases" about how it's nothing that we should worry about.


Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: January 03 2006 at 8:38am
I am absolutely convinced that it was bird flu regardless of the "tests"

As previously stated, if you want to test to prove that it is not Bird Flu, you can test to prove it.

If you take mouth swabs after the virus has moved to the lungs, you get a negative.

If you test for serum antibodies in the first week after infection the antibodies mayl not be substantial enough to give a positive. Thus another negative.

There are other "tricks of the trade" but the end result is the same. If you want to deny that Bird Flu could ever enter your country, you play this game until the deaths are so overwhelming that they can not be denied.

Indonesia five months ago had officially recorded 13 Bird Flu deaths. The WHO decided to help them out by redefining the criteria for tabulation of deaths. Overnight, Indonesia went from 13 to 3 deaths and a country that was on the edge of panic became placated.  Sadly, they have an outbreak that is not dying in the islands and more and more and more people are dying of pneumonia every day.

Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: January 05 2006 at 2:42am
Now you guys can see that the initial tests can be totally useless.  The reality is that thousands world wide have had Bird Flu but there is no record of it, because there were false negatives.


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