30.01.2006

Iraqi and U.N. health officials said Monday a 15-year-old girl who died this month was a victim of the deadly H5N1 strain of the avian influenza virus, the first confirmed case of the disease in the Middle East. Tests were under way to determine if the girl's uncle (39-year-old) , who lived in the same house, also died of the virus. He died 10 days later after suffering the same symptoms, officials said. Iraqi health authorities began killing domestic birds in northern Iraq, which borders Turkey, where at least 21 cases of the deadly virus have been detected. Turkey and Iraq also lie on a migratory path for numerous species of birds. "We regretfully announce that the first case of avian influenza has appeared in Iraq," Iraqi Health Minister Abdel Mutalib Mohammed told reporters in the Kurdistan city of Sulaimaniyah, 160 miles northeast of Baghdad. Mohammed made the announcement after receiving results from the U.S. Navy Medical Research Unit laboratory in Egypt that conducted tests on the girl, who died Jan. 17. "The results show the inflection with the deadly H5N1," he said. "We appeal to the World Health Organization to help us.' The Iraqi girl died after contracting a severe lung infection in her village of Raniya, about 60 miles south of the Turkish border and just 15 miles west of Iran. Dick Thompson, a WHO spokesman, said that preliminary laboratory results showed that the girl did have the H5N1 strain, but that test samples are being flown to a WHO laboratory in the United Kingdom for final confirmation.