Health officials in northern Iraq have sent samples to Jordan for testing for the bird flu virus H5N1 after a 14-year-old girl died in the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniya, officials said on today.
Tijan Abdel-Qader died on arrival at the main hospital yesterday after falling ill 15 days earlier in her home town of Raniya, in Kurdistan close to the Turkish and Iranian borders, Kurdish regional health minister Mohammed Khashnow said.
"The doctors in Sulaimaniya suspected this might be a case (of bird flu)," he said. "They have sent samples to Amman and we will know the results next week."
Raniya is close to Lake Dukan, which draws many migratory birds to the region and where Iraqi officials had been taking measures to try to prevent domestic fowl from being infected.
"The rest of the family is in good health," Khashnow added, saying the family was not in the poultry business.
An Iraqi Health Ministry spokesman confirmed the suspected case and a senior central government health official in Baghdad confirmed a team had been dispatched to investigate.