Iraqi teen died of bird flu

GENEVA - Tests carried out by a British laboratory on samples taken from a dead Iraqi teenager have confirmed that she had bird flu, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said today.

Spokesman Dick Thompson said the UN health agency was already acting as if the girl, who died on Jan. 17, had indeed been a victim of the virulent virus and a team of WHO experts was on its way to the country.

Asked whether the WHO's independent laboratory in Britain had confirmed she had H5N1 virus, Thompson told Reuters: "Yes." Samples from the girl's uncle, who also died while suffering severe respiratory difficulties, a bird flu symptom, had not yet reached the WHO-affiliated lab in Britain, he added.

Iraqi officials said earlier this week they were treating a total of 12 patients suspected of having bird flu.

The two dead people lived in the largely autonomous northern Iraqi region of Kurdistan, near areas frequented by migrating birds and not far from the border with Turkey.

The WHO has confirmed 12 bird flu cases, including four fatalities, in Turkey last month.

While H5N1 mostly affects birds, it has infected 160 people, mainly in Asia, and now killed 86 people in seven countries, including the victim in Iraq.

Experts fear it could mutate to spread easily between humans and spark a pandemic that could kill millions.

- REUTERS