Right now these new cases in Turkey, they don't elevate the global risk assessment, so we're still in the same pandemic alert phase that we've been in for the last couple of years. But it's something that needs to be monitored very closely.
We don't have any information about cases actually in the capital.
Our office in Beijing was informed of this today. It is in a province that hasn't identified human cases before but it is somebody who seems to have a history of exposure to poultry.
These are all cases that have already been announced (by Turkish authorities).
We'd like to see all these cases investigated rapidly so that we can determine what the mode of transmission was, what the source of exposure was, and whether or not there were any characteristics of the situation that are different from what we've seen in Asia.
We shouldn't be seeing human cases first, and this points to serious gaps in surveillance. But given the situation in Turkey, I don't think we'd be surprised to see isolated humans cases in surrounding areas.
There is one confirmed case, the girl, and three suspect cases under investigation who have died. They include her uncle, the boy in the south and another case.
If we are able to identify cases rapidly enough so that we could put in these measures, they might effectively contain the spread of a pandemic,