Egypt reports 4th suspected human bird flu case

[DB]

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L2155220.htm

CAIRO, March 21 (Reuters) - Egypt reported a fourth suspected case of bird flu in humans on Tuesday, in a 17-year-old boy whose father had an outbreak of the disease on his chicken farm in the Nile Delta on Saturday and Sunday.

Health Minister Hatem el-Gabali, quoted by the state new agency MENA, said the boy was taken to hospital in the town of Tanta on Sunday and was being treated with Tamiflu, the drug used to fight bird flu in humans. His condition was "good and stable", he added.
The boy was the fourth Egyptian suspected of contracting the disease from infected birds. Of the first three, one has died, one has recovered and the third is receiving treatment.
In preliminary tests, the first three were positive for the H5N1 strain of the virus, which can infect humans who come into contact with infected birds.
Gabali said that 2,825 of the chickens at the family's farm in Gharbia province northwest of Cairo died at the weekend and the rest of the 4,000 flock had been culled.

[Sally Furniss]

Re: Egypt reports 4th suspected human bird flu case

Egypt said four people have been infected with the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu, including one who has already died.
However, the results of medical tests carried out by the health ministry are still awaiting a final confirmation from the World Health Organisation which has sent the specimens to a British labatory.

The latest case was contracted by Mohammed Mahmud Abdul Ghani Ghabash, 17. A a student from the province of Gharbiyah, north of Cairo, he was hospitalized on Sunday, Health Minister Hatem al-Gabali said.
Ghabash worked on his father's poultry farm, where 3,000 birds died of flu over the weekend.
Previously, Fatima Mohammed Yussef, 30, from Qaliubiya, north of Cairo, was hospitalised in the capital after showing initial bird flu symptoms.
She had continued to work in her chicken coop and kill fowl two weeks ago despite a ban since the H5N1 virus was detected in Egypt in mid-February.
An infected man has also been hospitalized after spending time with infected poultry but medics said Sunday he was recovering.
The only fatal victim so far has been Amal Mohammed Ismail, from Nawa village also in Qaliubiya province, who kept a domestic bird farm despite a ban on the practice since the arrival of bird flu.
She died of a fever in hospital Saturday nearly two weeks after she was admitted with flu-like symptoms.

Meanwhile, ministry spokesman Abdulrahman Shahin said three more people, including a 10-year-old girl, were suspected of having contracted the disease.
Later, however, he said tests on the three had all proved negative.
Eighteen out of Egypt's 26 provinces have now been affected by bird flu.
The H5N1 strain of bird flu, its most aggressive form, has killed nearly 100 people worldwide, according to the WHO, and seen millions of birds destroyed.
Egypt is on a major route for migratory birds, at the crossroads between Asia and Africa.
An outbreak of the most pathogenic strain of the virus that originated in Asia was seen as inevitable in Egypt after seven birds were found infected in February.