'Doctors Said My Son Was Playing Sick To Skip School' (Turkey - Flu Deaths)

The Telegraph (UK) ^ | 1-8-2006 | Ahmet Sumbul - Andrew Alderson

[blam]

'Doctors said my son was playing sick to skip school'

By Ahmet Sumbul in Dogubayazit and Andrew Alderson
(Filed: 08/01/2006)

The parents of three children who have died from bird flu accused their government of a cover-up yesterday as they prayed for the survival of their remaining child.

Marifet Kocyigit's grief over her loss is matched only by her anger towards the Turkish authorities. "If only there had been a decent hospital, if only the authorities had cared, my babies would still be alive," she said.

The Kocyigit family lost three children in six days

Mrs Kocyigit, 37, spoke exclusively to the Sunday Telegraph at the two-room concrete shack in eastern Turkey that the family calls home. "May Allah at least spare my Hasan Ali, he is all I have," she pleaded.

Hasan Ali, seven, is the youngest child in the family. Yesterday he remained in intensive care at the state hospital in Van, where three of his siblings, Mehmet, 14, Fatma, 15 and Hulya, 11, died in the space of six days from bird flu.

They are victims of the H5N1 strain of the virus which has claimed the lives of scores of people in south-east Asia and now Turkey.

Mehmet was the first to die, last Sunday. "Just as our hopes were rising, we had news that our Fatma had also died," said Mrs Kocyigit.

"That is when they said it was this bird flu. Just as we finished burying Fatma, we found ourselves digging a fresh grave for our Hulya. What is this plague that has struck us all," she asked, drying her tears with her headscarf.

The Kocyigits are too poor to own a telephone. Mr Kocyigit's brother, Hasan, who has a mobile telephone, regularly calls the hospital 125 miles away where Hasan Ali is in isolation, his condition described yesterday as "critical but stable". The hospital is sealed off even to relatives to prevent the virus spreading.

Zeki Kocyigit, 38, the children's father who ekes a living hawking pirated cassettes, said: "If the government hadn't lied to us, we wouldn't be burying our children.

They should have warned us, but not a single government official even showed up at our children's funerals."

The family lives in a slum district on the oustkirts of Dogubayazit, a town of 56,000 people in a mountainous region close to Turkey's borders with Iran. Like many families in the impoverished region, which is mainly inhabited by ethnic Kurds, the Kocyigits bred a handful of chickens, mainly for their eggs.

Mr Kocyigit described the events leading to the death of his children. "On December 29 one of our chickens fell ill. Rather than waste the meat we decided to slaughter and eat it.

"My daughter Fatma killed it, Mehmet and Hulya plucked its feathers, my wife cooked and we all ate it. Hasan Ali - he is so naughty - kicked the chicken's head like a football. If we'd only known where this would all lead," said Mr Kocyigit, burying his head in his hands.

It wasn't until two days later, on December 31, that the children showed signs of illness. "I took Mehmet to the local dispensary. The doctor took a look at Mehmet and accused him of feigning illness so he could skip school. He prescribed him some syrup and sent us off." By the following day the children's condition had deteriorated.

"They had high temperatures and their throats were bleeding," said Mr Kocyigit. "We took them to the dispensary again and told the doctor they had eaten chicken. He told us to take them to Van hospital saying they might either have food poisoning or bird flu."

On January 1 Mehmet died. Athough doctors at Van hospital said they suspected the children had contracted bird flu, the government dismissed that diagnosis as irresponsible and announced on January 2 that the boy had died of pneumonia.

There are currently 15 people, including Hasan Ali, in hospital in Van with bird flu-like symptoms. Ahmet Elnazik, 27, who has three relatives in hospital with the suspected virus, said: "If the media hadn't done their job the authorities might still be trying to fool us with talk of pneumonia. It's because we are poor and that we are Kurds that we are being treated like second-class beings."

The Turkish authorities are gearing up to tackle the problem, but locals have criticised the slow speed at which thousands of birds in the region have been culled.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister, said on Friday: "We will instruct imams [Islamic clerics] to inform the public about the measures they need to take in order to avoid infection and similar information will be spread through the schools."

• Additional reporting: Amberin Zaman in Ankara

[blam]

Ping.

[Termite_Commander]

On December 29 one of our chickens fell ill. Rather than waste the meat we decided to slaughter and eat it.

-----

On January 1 Mehmet died.

Three days from time of infection to time of death? That's highly unusual.

[muawiyah]

Sounds like a government operated health care plan.

[Lijahsbubbe]

I read in the local paper that the kids were playing catch in the house with chicken heads.

I'm surprised the whole family hasn't contacted the disease.

[little jeremiah]

Poor, poor parents. How very sad. I can't imagine how they feel.

[From many - one.]

1. bird contagious before apparently ill.

2. other infectious but only mildly ill birds.

[Termite_Commander]

That thought occurred to me after I posted. I should have thought my statement through a little better. Oops.

I remember a number of stories about asymptomatic ducks and chickens in Vietnam; so after all, why couldn't they be the same in Turkey?

[Termite_Commander]

The story now is that the youngest of the siblings, Hasan Ali, kicked a chicken head around outside. He is the sole survivor of the four children.

Also, you bring up an excellent point. The fact is that of the cases admitted to hospitals in Turkey so far, about 80% of the patients have been under 15 years old. Why? Nobody knows. Only three adults are receiving medical care for potential avian flu.

[From many - one.]

And after I posted I remembered reading how fast the 1918 flu killed: as little as 12 hours from first symptoms to dead.

Actually, I also doubt the reported death rate for people. I'm convinced milder cases never show up at the doctor's offices or hospitals.

Just as, when I was younger, I never went in for flu...just stayed in bed a day or two and complained. (Now I get the flu shot as one of the bennies of geezerdom.)

[Conservative Goddess]

My understanding is that bird flu hits fast and hard.....

By the time you realize it's not an ordinary cold, you're essentially dead.

[Termite_Commander]

Just as, when I was younger, I never went in for flu...just stayed in bed a day or two and complained.

Well hopefully you never had (and never will get) avian influenza, what with the profusely bleeding throat and gums, pneumonia, vomiting, etc...

In all seriousness, I fully agree with you that the mortality rate is a bit high. Annual flu's death rate is somewhere in the .01% range, 1918's H1N1 strain's rate was between 2% to 5%. 50%+ mortality rate? It looks nearly impossible.

Curiously, scientists do find that 100% of mice that are infected with the strain die. That's pretty high.

[Lijahsbubbe]

Funny how these news stories can very. I read it in the St. Paul Pioneer Press, I don't recall if it was the AP or some other. We all know how inaccurate news stories can be, but it seems we do know that these kids were playing with dead chickens.

I don't like the idea of all of this third world stuff going on in our country.

Minnesota is one of the states with the highest populations of third worlders; Hmong, Somalian, etc.

We were one of the first states visited by the federal govt to initiate the federal bird flu plan.

Let's hope that this disease remains in the state in seems to be in now, only transferable from bird to human.

[Termite_Commander]

Right, fast and hard is a good description, but the incubation period that is accepted is about a week, not three days. However, From many - one. made a good point about how the infection did not necessarily take place on the 29th. Asymptomatic poultry, or only mildly ill chickens, could account for an earlier date of infection.

[jec41]

Three days from time of infection to time of death? That's highly unusual.

Not with Bird flu. If you are not treated within 48 hrs. you probably won't make 72. Its very quick.

[Termite_Commander]

Not to be nit-picky (or maybe I am) about it, but the most recent information says that one of the kids did kick a bird head around as a gag. The whole family wasn't out for a fun game of bloody-bird-head-soccer. =)
The other family members killed, plucked, prepared and ate the chicken.

As an aside, playing bird-head-soccer wouldn't be much fun with an H5N1 infected chicken; they tend to liquefy after they die from the infection.

Thing is, depending on who you trust, we're monitoring between 9 and 50 likely cases of avian flu in humans. I don't think everybody was kicking bird heads around.

[From many - one.]

"...Curiously, scientists do find that 100% of mice that are infected with the strain die. That's pretty high."

Wow.
I hadn't read about that one and I have been trying to keep up.

Something I've heard but haven't been able to validate is that prednisone could prevent the fatal cytokine storm. Do you have any info on that?

[Abby4116]

Mr Kocyigit described the events leading to the death of his children. "On December 29 one of our chickens fell ill. Rather than waste the meat we decided to slaughter and eat it. This seems to be one of the similarities of the individuals becoming ill with this flu.

[demkicker]

Not with Bird flu. If you are not treated within 48 hrs. you probably won't make 72. Its very quick.

You must know something the rest of us don't. Am I under the wrong impression that getting bird flu is deadly and that there is no cure? If so, it shouldn't matter what kind of "treatment" you receive, since there is none.

[Termite_Commander]

Maybe now it is, but with previous cases in Vietnam, Indonesia and others, that has not been the case. I think you might be confusing the "not treated within 48 hours" thing with another statistic, that being that after you show symptoms, you need Tamiflu to be administered within 48 hours or it's no good.

Not to be condescending in any way. I may very well be wrong, and you correct.

[Lijahsbubbe]

I'm under the assumption that it's believed that most of the infected people had direct contact with the infected birds. Is it possible to contract the disease from eating the cooked chicken?

And no, I don't think you're being nit-picky. Otherwise you would have pointed out that I used the incorrect spelling of "vary". ;)

[Termite_Commander]

Well, there's certainly no silver bullet, but there are two drugs which do show, to a limited extent, to be effective against H5N1. Tamiflu, which we've all heard about, can work if properly given. The three Kocyigit children did not get Tamiflu until after two had died. It seems to be helping, since Hasan Ali Kocyigit has since come off a respirator and seems to be improving after getting a Tamiflu regimen.

[blam]

"Something I've heard but haven't been able to validate is that prednisone could prevent the fatal cytokine storm. Do you have any info on that?"

You can probably find your answer on this thread.

Bird Flu May Over-Stimulate Immune System

[Termite_Commander]

You can get the disease from eating undercooked chicken or infected eggs. When properly cooked, the virus kicks the bucket.

I think that most of the people are also though to have some relation to sick chickens too, at this point. However, the sheer numbers show something has probably changed.

Going to pure speculation here (take it as such), perhaps H5N1 has grown an affinity for human lungs instead of bird lungs, hence easier bird-to-human spread, and possibly some limited human-to-human spread, which would help explain the large families we've seen sick with symptoms of bird flu.

[Termite_Commander]

Keep in mind that those are lab mice, though. Their bodies obviously are not as complex as humans, their immune systems aren't as strong, and heck, maybe the virus that particular batch received may have mutated, or maybe the mice were unhealthy. Possibilities abound.

I only read about that fatality rate in one article, so they could have been referring to tests with a bad batch of mice.

[Feiny]

" Hasan Ali - he is so naughty - kicked the chicken's head like a football. If we'd only known where this would all lead," said Mr Kocyigit, burying his head in his hands. "

Is it wrong to laugh at that sentence?

[From many - one.]

Found it, thanks.

For those interested, Blam's link is a highly informative thread which includes a link to this excellent site:

http://www.curevents.com/vb/showthread.php?t=14854

A survey of all sorts of alternative treatments with a pretty cool headed evaluation.

And yes, cheap prednisone may be beneficial.

[From many - one.]

Good points you made.

I will proceed to ignore the lab mice.

[Dichroic]

the most recent information says that one of the kids did kick a bird head around as a gag>>>>>

Yeah apparently just the youngest kid, who is still hanging onto life.

[Dichroic]

Bird Flu ping

[jec41]

You must know something the rest of us don't. Am I under the wrong impression that getting bird flu is deadly and that there is no cure? If so, it shouldn't matter what kind of "treatment" you receive, since there is none.


You need to do a little research. Tamiflu is the only treatment. It needs to be administered within 48 hrs. of the first symptoms. It seems to be about 75% effective. The dose is 75mg twice a day for 5 days. for symptoms. It is larger if you have been exposed and have no symptoms. 75mg twice a day for 6 days. However thy are worried about resistance to Tamiflu and the recommended dose may be increased because many used it in chicken feed in a effort to save their stock. The problem is that in a pandemic there is not a large available supply of Tamiflu in the US. The shelf life is 5 years and most Doctors will give you a prescription. However many drugstores are sold out. I got a supply for the family 6 months ago.

[jec41]

Not to be condescending in any way. I may very well be wrong, and you correct.

The reason you must have Tamiflu within 48 hrs. of symptoms is because of the speed that the flu works. Documented cases 142, deaths 74. Thats over a 50% rate. Seems to affect the young more than adults. Most die within 3-4 days. If you survive 5 days you have a chance even though the recovery may be long.

[dljordan]

" Three days from time of infection to time of death? That's highly unusual."

Well, the Chinese labs have been working overtime to get this right.

[Termite_Commander]

I believe they survive 3-4 days after showing symptoms, though.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

BTTT!