Panic Spreading in Turkey

More interesting info:

DOGUBAYAZIT, Turkey - Turkey reported a spike in suspected bird flu cases among people across the country on Monday as fears grew that the deadly disease was sweeping westward towards mainland Europe.

HSBC, the world's third largest bank, is estimating that up to half of its staff could fall ill or be absent from work at the peak of the next flu pandemic, as Europe began to come to terms with the first human cases of the H5N1 bird flu virus on its doorstep.

Full Story: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/10779065/

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Bird flu has been confirmed at poultry farms in the village of Primorsky on the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea.

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Bird Flu Spreads, 11 Cities Quarantined

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Neighboring Syria, meanwhile, announced it was clear of the virus,
with an official denying rumors that a man had died from the disease
near Syria's northern border with Turkey. "There is no case of bird
flu in Syria. All reports of deaths from this illness are rumors,"
said health ministry official Mahmoud Karim, adding that a man died
recently in the northwest of the country from "pulmonary illness."

Would you like to bet your life on that -- you just might be

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The Kurdish town of Van is indeed remote and it would be easy to take some solace from that. But it is just a few hundred miles north of Iraq where there is the desolation and disruption of war and 160,000 American troops that move about the country and internationally. War has always been the breeding ground par excellanceof epidemics. While it would be a Great Irony if the soldiers sent allegedly to "keep us safe" became themselves the victims and vectors of Nature's Bioterrorist, it would just be a tiresome repeat of much of history.

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