Three cases of bird flu in Iraq

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), a teenager in Iraq who died on January 17th had the H5N1 virus.

Her uncle who died last week is also suspected of having had bird flu but further tests in the UK are underway to confirm both cases.

The WHO says a third possible case, in a 54-year-old woman who was taken to hospital with respiratory problems on January 18th, is also being investigated.

All three cases are from northern Iraq, near the city of Sulaimaniya, and if confirmed will be the first known human cases of the avian virus in Iraq.

Iraq's northern regions border Turkey, where more than 20 people have already been diagnosed with H5N1.

The WHO has said it is unclear why children had been the main victims of the recent outbreak of bird flu in Turkey, but says no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the virus has been found and no sign it was now spreading more easily from birds to humans.

The WHO has confirmed 12 of the 21 H5N1 bird flu cases reported by Turkey's Health Ministry; that number includes the four children from the eastern town of Dogubayazit who died.

The WHO says that the vast majority of cases in Turkey have been children aged 15 years or younger remains puzzling, as adult members in some of the families were involved in the slaughter of sick birds, yet did not develop the infection.

This has apparently raised the possibility of an as yet unidentified genetic or immunological factor influencing the likelihood of human infection.

To date bird flu is known to have killed at least 85 people and infected 160 since it re-emerged in late 2003.

It remains relatively hard for people to catch,as it is a disease in birds and is caught by close contact with sick birds but experts fear it may mutate and become easily transmitted from person to person, triggering a major pandemic.

So far Turkey has culled 1.3 million birds in attempts to halt the spread of the virus, and though the WHO expects some human cases may still occur, the numbers should be small.