Health officials in Turkey say a 12-year-old girl with symptoms of bird flu has died while her younger brother has tested positive for the virus and is in critical condition.
The girl, Fatma Ozcan, had been hospitalized in the eastern city of Van with her five-year-old brother Muhammed for several days.
Late Sunday, the Turkish Health Ministry said the boy has tested positive for bird flu. Doctors were performing tests to determine whether the H5N1 strain killed the girl. Initial tests were negative.
Turkey previously found 18 people testing positive for bird flu, including three children from the same family who died in a village near Van last week.
Those deaths were the first reported bird flu fatalities outside eastern Asia, where more than 70 infected people have died since 2003
Some information for this report was provided by AFP and Reuters.
