THREE people who died earlier this month in Azerbaijan had been infected with bird flu in the country's first case in humans, the Health Ministry said today.
"Initial analysis from the laboratory shows that the three people who died did so as a result of bird flu," Health Ministry spokeswoman Samaya Mamedova said.
"Experts from the World Health Organisation (WHO) also took part in the (laboratory) tests."
She said the results came from a mobile laboratory that was brought into the country from Cairo overnight.
There was no word on the results of tests Azerbaijan sent last week to a laboratory in Britain approved by the WHO.
The mobile laboratory tests showed that one of the dead had not been infected with bird flu, the ministry spokeswoman said. She said a further six people from the same area who were in hospital with suspected bird flu were not infected.
The infected people were thought to be members of a family from the Salyan region, in southern Azerbaijan near the Caspian Sea coast, who were hospitalised early in March with suspected bird flu. Four of them died.
Relatives told local media that the infected family kept poultry in their house, a common practice in rural Azerbaijan.
Azerbaijan is an eastern neighbour of Turkey, which has also had an outbreak of bird flu in humans. The country also borders Russia, Iran, Georgia and Armenia.
Azerbaijan confirmed its first case of bird flu in migratory birds at the start of February.
Dead birds on the Absheron peninsula near the capital, Baku, and in the Masalla region, near Iran, were found to have the deadly H5N1 strain of the disease.
RBY Price at posting:
0.0¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
