A hospital in the western Algerian city of Oran carried out precautionary tests for bird flu on a family of four, but initial results were negative, the hospital director said on Wednesday.
Definitive test results are not expected for a week, Dr Abderrahmane Attar said in a telephone interview.
The four, who live among poultry in a rural area outside Oran, were hospitalised after one family member fell ill with severe flu symptoms and quickly died, Attar said.
The bird-flu tests are precautionary, the doctor stressed, adding that there are many other illnesses that could potentially resemble bird flu.
The four family members have slight respiratory problems and a slight fever, ”but there are no major signs … that favour bird flu”, Attar said. They ”are in good general health”.
”The initial results are negative,” he said.
Testing is being carried out at the Pasteur Institute in Algiers, the capital.
The four were hospitalised after a 46-year-old member of the family fell ill last Thursday with a high fever, pains and spitting blood. He died two days later and was buried immediately.
Attar said authorities were worried because the victim lived in a rural area surrounded by poultry and because his death was sudden.
The bird-flu virus has killed at least 82 people worldwide since 2003, the large majority in Asia. It recently spread to Turkey where 21 confirmed human cases have been detected. Four children there have died over the past month.
Experts fear the bird-flu virus could mutate into a form that spreads easily among humans, possibly sparking a pandemic killing millions of people.
There have been numerous false alarms since the virus began spreading. — Sapa-AP