The European Commission (EC) has been informed through the World Health Organisation (WHO) that results from National and University Laboratories in Ankara, Turkey suggest that four people, including a boy and a girl that have died, had been infected with avian influenza virus. There may be additional suspected cases.

An outbreak of this disease was confirmed in chickens in eastern Turkey, in the vicinity of the border with Armenia and Iran, several days ago. A Community veterinary expert, who is also a member of the OIE/FAO network of expertise for Avian Influenza (OFFLU), an epidemiologist from the ECDC together with WHO experts have travelled to Turkey to review the situation in cooperation with the Turkish authorities.

In the meantime, samples from the sick chickens which may have transmitted the disease to the humans have been transported to the Community Reference Laboratory for Avian Influenza in Weybridge, UK. This will clarify whether the animal outbreak was due to the deadly H5N1 strain of avian influenza. The Turkish authorities are also sending samples from the human cases to a WHO reference laboratory in Colindale, UK, to confirm or exclude that the virus in question is the same as that in the chickens.