Avian influenza A (H5N1) spread to Turkey in late 2005. These investigators report on the clinical characteristics of 8 of the 12 patients with WHO-confirmed H5N1 infection in Turkey in January 2006, including all the patients who died. Establishing the diagnosis of H5N1 infection was quite challenging and was successfully achieved with the use of a real-time polymerase-chain-reaction assay.
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