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France fears bird flu case
22/01/2006 14:21 - (SA)
Montpellier - A young woman who recently returned from Turkey has been hospitalised in southern France amid fears she might have bird flu, the health ministry said on Sunday.
"A 32 year-old woman returning from a stay in the Tarsus region of Turkey, where she was travelling alone, is being treated at Montpellier hospital for flu-like symptoms accompanied by breathing difficulties," a statement said.
The case was being treated as potential bird flu because of the "symptoms and because the woman saw dead birds while travelling in a country affected by the epidemic", the statement said.
However the ministry said an initial diagnostic test on the woman had proved negative.
"Samples taken from inside her nose and throat will undergo analysis at a Marseille laboratory for traces of the H5N1 strain of the virus. "Results should be known by the end of the day," the statement said.
The woman has been placed in an isolation ward and is receiving "antiviral treatment," the ministry said.
The potentially deadly H5N1 bird flu virus has killed about 80 people since re-emerging in 2003, four in Turkey and the others in East Asia.
- AFP
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