Avian flu has been detected in a village in Batman province in southeastern Türkiye, the Agriculture Ministry announced on 8 February 2007, while laboratory tests were still under way to confirm whether the pathogen is the highly contagious H5N1 strain.
Around 170 birds died in Boğazköy before authorities were notified Monday. A quarantine zone covering a 10-kilometer radius around the village, including two neighboring settlements, was established, and veterinary teams began culling roughly 900 chickens, turkeys, and ducks. Migratory birds are suspected as the source of the outbreak.
Ministry spokesman Osman Bengi said "no finding so far" pointed to human infection in the region. A nationwide response plan was activated alongside renewed public warnings against keeping poultry outdoors.
The detection comes more than a year after a severe 2006 outbreak in eastern Türkiye, near the Iranian border, that killed four children and spread the virus to more than a third of the country's 81 provinces, prompting the culling of over 2.5 million birds. The disease had been declared eliminated as of 31 March that year.
The four teenagers, three siblings and a cousin from Doğubeyazıt, were the first confirmed H5N1 human fatalities recorded outside Southeast Asia and China. Eight other confirmed carriers recovered after treatment.
Historical summary. TurkishPress restated this wire report, first published in February 2007, in its own words.