Night's Black Bird III

BAGHDAD, Jan. 30 -- "Iraqi Health Minister Abdul Mutalib Ali Mohammed Salih said Monday that a 14-year-old girl who died almost two weeks ago in the northern city of Sulaymaniyah was found to have been infected with bird flu.

The girl, Tijan Abdel Qadr, died after experiencing severe respiratory symptoms consistent with those present in the disease that has killed more than 80 people, the vast majority in Asia, since it was first diagnosed in 2003. Medical scientists fear that if left unchecked, the disease could spread to broad swaths of the global population.

"The test of Tijan's blood emphasized that she had bird flu from the kind that kills humans," Ali told reporters Monday in Sulaymaniyah, located in Iraq's semi autonomous Kurdish region.

The World Health Organization, which had said on Jan. 19 that the teenager did not have the disease, told the Reuters news service that its initial assessment had been based only on tests conducted in Iraq. Further testing turned up positive results for the H5N1 strain of the virus, which is highly lethal and can be contracted from close contact with infected poultry, Reuters reported." ...

Jonathan Finer "Bird Flu Death of Iraqi Girl Confirmed" Washingtonpost.com January 30, 2006.












Vincent van Gogh Crows in a Wheatfield (1890, Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh, Amsterdam, Netherlands) is the last painting that Dutch artist Vincent Van Gogh created before his suicide. His emotional intensity is conveyed through the thick, agitated brushstrokes and the ominous crows, which are symbols of death.

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Text source and Image credit: www.encarta.msn.com/media