Individuals of the 2005 Avian Flu Epidemic: The Kocyigit Family

The Kocyigit family lost three of its children to the 2005 avian flu epidemic. The family’s son, Mehet Ali, was 14 years old and the first victim of avian flu outside of China and southeast Asia. He died on January 1. After Mehet, the family’s 15 year-old daughter Fatma also died from avian flu before their third child, 11 year-old Hulya, also succumbed to the epidemic. The family’s fourth child had also been hospitalized and treated for avian flu, but survived the other three children.

The family lived in Dogubayazit, Turkey, and the children are suspected to have contracted the epidemic after handling the heads of dead chickens believed to have carried the it. Turksih authorities had culled over 7,000 birds in surrounding areas in attempts to stop the spread of the epidemic after there were already 70 reported deaths in Asia at the time. After the children’s deaths, more than 30 others had been hospitalized for possible symptoms of the epidemic.

During the funeral rites and burials of the children, guests and imams wore masks and gloves for fear of also being infected. The family did not make public statements about their children and the Turkish government, aside from the releasing of the family’s name, declined to offer more details.¹

Burial of Fatma Kocyigit

¹

For Mehet: Nothing Gold Can Stay by Robert Frost

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

For Fatma: A Clear Midnight by Walt Whitman

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

For Hulya: If I Should Go by Unknown Author

If I should go tomorrow
It would never be goodbye,
For I have left my heart with you,
So don’t you ever cry.
The love that’s deep within me,
Shall reach you from the stars,
You’ll feel it from the heavens,
And it will heal the scars.