H5NI girl kissed dying chickens

Van - Sumeyya Mamuk's backyard chickens were her beloved pets.

She fed them, petted them and took care of them.

When they started to get sick and die, she hugged them and kissed them goodbye.

The next morning, the 8-year-old's face and eyes had swollen and she was suffering from a high fever.

Her father took her to a hospital, and five days later she was confirmed to have been infected with the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu.

"The chickens were sick. One had puffed up and she touched it.

"We told her not to. She loved chickens a lot," said her father, Abdulkerim Mamuk.

"She held them in her arms."

Her oldest brother, Sadun, said Sumeyya, the second-youngest of eight children, loved animals and was known for taking care of puppies and kittens from the neighbourhood.

When her chickens started to die of bird flu, some of them puffed up, with their stomachs and intestines apparently dripping out of their mouths and what appeared to be blood oozing from their eyes, Summeya's family said.

When their mother saw Summeya holding one of them, she yelled at her and hit the girl to get her away.

Sumeyya began to cry. She wiped her tears with the hand she'd been using to comfort the dying chicken.

"She wiped her face," her father said. "She started to swell. She had a really high fever."

Following a few tense days when her family worried if she would recover, Summeya's condition has improved due to quick treatment with the antiviral drug Tamiflu, chief physician Dr Huseyin Avni Sahin at the Van 100th Year Hospital told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

But at least two other children have died of the same virus in Turkey, and as of Tuesday, 15 people had tested positive for infection in preliminary tests.

Many of those are children.

As the H5N1 bird flu virus spreads, scientists monitoring it for fear it could mutate into a form easily transmissible among humans, say education on its dangers is crucial to fighting it.

The World Health Organisation is considering implementing a programme aimed solely at rural children.

"It's child behaviour," a spokesperson said.

"They play with everything."

As for Sumeyya, she is expected to be released from the hospital and join her family and her wingless pets - dogs, cats and cows - in the next few days.

- AP