Bird Flu Suspected in Death of Iraqi; Serbia Testing Swan

Iraq said Thursday that it suspected a woman there had died of the H5N1 strain of bird flu, and Serbia said a dead swan was being tested to see whether it was that nation’s first known case.

The latest apparent cases came hours after U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said it was “just a matter of time” before wild birds and possibly poultry in the United States contracted H5N1.

The H5N1 strain of avian flu virus has killed 94 people in seven countries: Turkey, Iraq, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, China and Cambodia. It is known to have infected 174 people, but experts are unsure whether some instances of less serious infection went undetected in others.

Iraq said the woman who died of the suspected case of H5N1 lived near the southern city of Nasiriya. Two fatal cases of human bird flu, involving a teenager and her uncle, were previously confirmed in the northern Iraqi province of Sulaymaniya, close to the border with Turkey.

Serbia said it had its first suspected case of bird flu in a dead swan in the northwest region of Sombor, close to the Croatian border.

The Ministry of Agriculture in Belgrade said samples would be sent to a British laboratory to determine whether the H5N1 strain was present.