ANKARA, Jan. 12 (Xinhuanet) -- The Turkish Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs said on Thursday that bird flu has been confirmed in 11 cities and over a dozen others may also have been affected.

    The ministry said in a statement that bird flu was detected in eastern cities of Igdir, Erzurum, Agri, Erzincan, Bitlis and Van,southeastern city of Sanliurfa, central cities of Ankara and Yozgat and northwestern cities of Bursa and Istanbul.

    Eastern cities of Mus and Elazig, northeastern cities of Kars,Rize, Ardahan, southeastern city of Diyarbakir, eastern city of Elazig and Mus, southern cities of Isparta and Osmaniye, westerncities of Izmir and Aydin and central cities of Karaman, Sivas and Konya may also have been affected, it added.

    At least 11 of Turkey's 81 provinces have reported outbreaks of bird flu, and Istanbul, the largest city in Turkey with apopulation of some 12 million, is the westernmost point where the virus has been found since it resurfaced in Turkey last month..

    However, the World Health Organization (WHO)'s regional director for Europe Dr. Marc Danzon told a news conference,jointly held with Turkish Health Minister Recep Akdag on Wednesday,that there was no reason to panic over bird flu in Turkey.

    "Health officials have been doing everything that is known to maintain and manage this difficult situation," Danzon told reporters, adding that "the situation has been taken seriously from the beginning in Turkey."

    "The action in the country has been appropriate and the management of this crisis is at the level where it should be, and we are satisfied both by the type of action taken by the Ministry of Health and by the possibility of our team to act independently and with transparency," Danzon said.

    A total of 15 people have been tested positive for bird flu in the country, three of whom died, according to Health Minister Akdag.

    "We hope that the number will not rise," he added."The whole issue is not to contact birds and not to let kids contact them. Culling of fowl has been continuing," he said.

    According to the Agriculture and Rural Affairs Ministry, 306,000 winged animals have been culled across the country by Tuesday due to the virus.

    The renewed bird flu scare, with the first outbreak reported in eastern Turkey in October, was triggered when three children from the same family died last week in the eastern city of Van after contracting the deadly H5N1 strain of the disease.

    Experts fear that the highly contagious virus could mutate into a human strain that could cause a worldwide pandemic among human beings.

    The H5N1 strain has so far killed over 70 people since it was first reported in Asia in 2003. Enditem