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Bird flu claims 2nd Turkish child
 People carry the coffin of a 15-year-old girl who died of bird flu. SPECIAL REPORT
• Bird flu: What you need to know
• Interactive: What is influenza?
YOUR E-MAIL ALERTSANKARA, Turkey (CNN) -- A 15-year-old girl has died of bird flu in Turkey, becoming the country's second person to succumb to the virus, according to health officials. Fatma Kocyigit's brother, Mehmet Ali Kocyigit, 14, died of a strain of avian influenza Sunday, Health Minister Recep Akdag said Thursday. World Health Organization (WHO) spokeswoman Maria Cheng told CNN the group had confirmed that the two had an H5 variety of the avian influenza, but said it was not yet known if it was the deadly H5N1 strain. Cheng said she would not be surprised if the results do come back showing it was the H5N1 strain, because that virus has been found in birds in that region. The siblings would be the first known human deaths from the strain outside of China and Southeast Asia. Eighteen other people, many of them members of the teenagers' family, are ill with flu-like symptoms in the city of Van in eastern Turkey. The head doctor of the hospital in Van said 12 of them are in critical condition and have been admitted to the facility. The doctor said he is in urgent need of more respirators to be able to treat all the patients. Preliminary tests conducted on the patients were negative for bird flu, the doctor said, but more comprehensive testing has been done and the samples sent to Ankara and Istanbul. It's not known when the results will be back. WHO is sending a team to Turkey to investigate the outbreak, Cheng said. On Thursday, health officials also announced 11 additional patients, also with flu-like symptoms, have been hospitalized in two eastern cities -- Erzurum and Aralik -- bringing the national total of suspected cases to 20. All 14 patients are from the Dogu Beyazit area, an agricultural town in eastern Turkey. Dr. Huseyin Avni Sahin, head of the hospital in Van, said the children's family reported that some of their chickens began dying late last year, and that the family cooked the remaining chickens for dinner. Shortly after that, he said, four children in the family began feeling ill and were brought to the hospital with flu-like symptoms. Then, a parent and another child from the same family were also admitted to the hospital, Sahin said. Another three people from a family in the same area and one person from Van were also hospitalized around that time with flu-like symptoms. The patients have all been isolated from other patients in the hospital, according to Sahin. According to the World Health Organization, 142 cases of bird flu have been reported worldwide, with 74 of those patients dying. All of the previous deaths have been in China and Southeast Asia, and world health officials have feared the spread of the disease to Europe from migratory birds flocking to the region, or from transport of domestic birds. Most of those cases have been spread through bird-to-human contact and not human-to-human. However, there are a few cases in which the virus is believed to have spread from human to human. Health officials have said they fear the virus could eventually mutate and spread rapidly from human to human, causing a worldwide pandemic. CNN Turk's Kaya Heyse contributed to this story. 
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