Fears continue to grow in Turkey as more reports of suspected bird flu cases among people sweep across the country.
Authorities are concerned that the deadly disease is spreading westwards towards mainland Europe.
In an attempt to allay some of the fear a World Health Organization (WHO) team who visited the village of Dogubayazit, the home of the dead children, said the evidence there pointed to infection from diseased chickens.
Guenael Rodier, the head of the WHO's mission to Turkey and a specialist on communicable diseases, has reportedly said that all the victims appear to have contracted the virus directly from infected birds, and it is not passing from person to person.
According to the Turkish authorities, 14 people have now tested positive for the deadly bird flu virus.
That number includes three children from the same family, from a poor rural region of eastern Turkey, who died last week.
Since its emergence in 2003 bird flu is known to have killed 76 people but this latest outbreak in Turkey, in humans, is the first to occur outside Asia.
Turks are understandably worried and are overwhelming hospitals demanding tests for the virus.
To date the virus has a record of killing more than half of those it infects.
Among 23 people undergoing tests for bird flu in Istanbul are thirteen children. None have been confirmed as having bird flu.
The city has a population of 12 million and is not only the country's commercial hub but is also the gateway to Europe from Asia.
Experts have feared all along that the deadly H5N1 strain will mutate to enable it to pass easily from person to person.
This could create a pandemic with the potential to kill tens of millions of people, because humans lack any immunity to it.
The WHO has only confirmed five cases in Turkey, including two deaths, and says other cases reported by Turkey have so far not been verified by laboratory tests.