EGYPT 31 Dec 2007 - 1 Jan 2008

[HenryN]

Re: Woman dies of bird flu in Egypt, fourth in week-WHO

Two Egyptian women die of bird flu
31 Dec 2007 19:00:36 GMT
<!-- 31 Dec 2007 19:00:36 GMT ## for search indexer, do not remove -->Source: Reuters

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</SPAN><INPUT id=CurrentSize type=hidden value=13 name=CurrentSize> <!-- Two Egyptian women die of bird flu --><!-- Reuters -->(Adds second death on Monday)
CAIRO, Dec 31 (Reuters) - Two Egyptian women died of bird flu on Monday, bringing to four the number of fatalities from the virus in the most populous Arab country in less than a week.
All four cases involved women and are believed to have resulted from exposure to sick or dead back-yard birds.
Firdaus Mohamed Hadad of Menoufia province in the Nile Delta was taken to hospital on Saturday and died early on Monday, the Health Ministry said in a statement.
"She suffered from a high fever and difficulty breathing and had a pulmonary infection after coming into contact with birds suspected of being infected with avian flu," the statement said. "She was placed on a respirator but died at dawn on Monday."
Later, John Jabbour, an Egypt-based official with the WHO, said a second, unnamed, woman died of the H5N1 strain of bird flu in northern Egypt.
The deaths were the 18th and 19th bird flu fatalities in Egypt since the virus arrived in early 2006.
It is the third winter that the virus has struck after lying low during Egypt's hot summers, when it is much less likely to spread from one carrier to another.
The government has promoted a poultry vaccination programme but coercive measures are hard to enforce.
Around 5 million households in Egypt depend on poultry as a main source of food and income, and the government has said this makes it unlikely the disease can be eradicated.
Deaths from bird flu now total more than 210 worldwide since 2003 and have been reported in several African and Asian countries, as well as in Turkey and Azerbaijan.
Health experts fear the virus could mutate into a form that spreads easily from one person to another, possibly triggering a pandemic that could kill millions. (Writing by Cynthia Johnston; Editing by Stephen Weeks)

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L31423521.htm

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[HenryN]

Re: Woman dies of bird flu in Egypt, fourth in week-WHO

Egypt records 19th bird flue fatality after two women die Monday
<HR SIZE=1><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>Associated Press , THE JERUSALEM POST </TD><TD align=right>Dec. 31, 2007</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<HR SIZE=1>
Egyptian health officials reported the deaths Monday of two women from bird flu, bringing to 19 the number of the country's fatalities since the lethal H5N1 strain first appeared here last year.
The deaths, along with those of two other women just days ago, bring to four the number of women who died from the strain in a single week.
The Health Ministry first reported Monday the death of Fardous Mahammed Hadad, 36, from Menoufia, 60 kilometers north of Cairo. Hadad, who was said to have contracted the disease from domestic fowl, was admitted to hospital on Sunday with breathing difficulties and high fever and later tested positive on the H5N1 strain of bird flu, the ministry said.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1198517257979&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter

[HenryN]

Re: Woman dies of bird flu in Egypt, fourth in week-WHO

<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD class=NewsDetailsTitle>Another Egyptian woman dies of bird flu disease, ministry confirms </TD></TR><TR><TD></TD></TR><TR><TD class=NewsDetailsCategory>Health 12/31/2007 11:23:00 PM</TD></TR><TR><TD> </TD></TR><TR><TD class=ArticleDetails><TABLE class=ImageFloat cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 align=left><TBODY><TR><TD></TD></TR><TR><TD class=pictureCaption id=tdCaption align=middle width=180></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>CAIRO, Dec 31 (KUNA) -- The Egyptian health ministry announced on Monday another death case of bird flu disease, the 44th since the outbreak of the epidemic in Egypt early 2006.
In a statement, the ministry said a 50-years-old woman of Dumiyadh governorate, north of Cairo, died today as result of infection with the H5N1 virus.
The woman was transfered to the hospital after contacting the sich birds.
Earlier today, the ministry announced the death of a 36-years-old woman as result of the bird flu disease.
Egypt detected the first H5N1 virus in dead poultry in February 2006, and the first human case in March of the same year. (end) rg.bz.
KUNA 312323 Dec 07NNNN

http://www.kuna.net.kw/NewsAgenciesPublicSite/ArticleDetails.aspx?id=1871792&Language=en

</TD></TR><TR><TD></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

[HenryN]

Re: Woman dies of bird flu in Egypt, fourth in week-WHO

28 December 2007
The Ministry of Health and Population, Egypt has announced two new cases of human infection of H5N1 avian influenza. The first case is a 50 year old female from Domiatt Governorate. She was hospitalized on 24 December and is in critical condition.
The second case is a 22 year old female chicken seller from Menofia Governorate. She was hospitalized on 26 December and is presently recovering in intensive care.
Both women had contact with sick and dead poultry prior to illness onset.
Of the 41 cases confirmed to date in Egypt, 16 have been fatal.

http://www.who.int/csr/don/2007_12_28a/en/index.html

[HenryN]

Re: Woman dies of bird flu in Egypt, fourth in week-WHO

Commentary at

http://www.recombinomics.com/News/12310707/H5N1_Egypt_CFR.html

[HenryN]

Re: Woman dies of bird flu in Egypt, fourth in week-WHO

http://www.eecho.ie/news/story/?trs=mheycwojgbkf

Egypt reports further Bird Flu death

31/12/2007 - 9:31:39 PM

Egyptian health officials today reported the deaths of two women from bird flu, bringing to 19 the number of fatalities since the lethal H5N1 strain first appeared in the country last year.

The deaths, along with those of two other women just days ago, bring to four the number of women who died from the strain in a single week.

The Health Ministry first reported today the death of Fardous Mahammed Hadad, 36, from Menoufia, 60km north of Cairo.

Ms Hadad, who was said to have contracted the disease from domestic fowl, was admitted to hospital yesterday with breathing difficulties and high fever and later tested positive for the H5N1 strain of bird flu, the ministry said.

Later, health officials said another women, Hanim Ibrahim Attwa, 44, also died today from bird flu at Al-Abbasiya Hospital in Cairo. Ms Attaw was from the Nile delta province of Dimayt, some 200 km north of the Egyptian capital.

The two women who died of the disease last week were identified as Fatima Fathi Mohammed, from the Nile Delta province of Daqahliya, and Ola Youness Mohammed, from the Beni Suef town south of Cairo.

The World Health Organisation said on Friday that two other women in Egypt tested positive for the H5N1 strain. The UN health agency said a 50-year-old woman was admitted to hospital with the disease on December 24 and was in a critical condition. A 22-year-old female chicken seller infected with the same strain was taken to hospital two days later and is recovering in intensive care, it said.

The cases, which were reported by Egypt’s Ministry of Health, bring the total number of H5N1 infections in the country to 43, including the 19 fatalities.

Most of the deaths have been among women or girls whose families raise poultry in backyards and who had daily contact with chickens or turkeys.

Egypt is one of the countries most affected by the H5N1 strain outside Asia, where the bird flu outbreak began. The country lies on a main route for migratory birds, which are believed to have brought the disease.

The H5N1 strain has hit 45 countries and killed nearly 200 people worldwide since 2003. It has resulted in the culling of millions of birds. The virus has infected more than 340 people and killed at least 212 since 2003, mostly in Asia.

[HenryN]

Re: Woman dies of bird flu in Egypt, fourth in week-WHO

Updated map

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=106484775090296685271.0004424130537a121b07f&ll=32.026706,31.750488&spn=7.559802,13.491211&t=h&z=6&om=1

20/12/2007 Confirmed case Attorh Hanim Ibrahim 50F admitted to Damietta hospital on Monday, Dec 24 with high fever, breathing problems and pneumonia
- husband reports she began showing symptoms on Dec 24
- transferred to Cairo's Abbasiyah hospital
died December 31

[Theresa42]

Re: Woman dies of bird flu in Egypt, fourth in week-WHO

I think they've mixed up the name and the age here (too much Guinness on New Year's Eve, prolly ):

Later, health officials said another women, Hanim Ibrahim Attwa, 44, also died today from bird flu at Al-Abbasiya Hospital in Cairo. Ms Attaw was from the Nile delta province of Dimayt, some 200 km north of the Egyptian capital.

The two women who died of the disease last week were identified as Fatima Fathi Mohammed, from the Nile Delta province of Daqahliya, and Ola Youness Mohammed, from the Beni Suef town south of Cairo.

The World Health Organisation said on Friday that two other women in Egypt tested positive for the H5N1 strain. The UN health agency said a 50-year-old woman was admitted to hospital with the disease on December 24 and was in a critical condition. A 22-year-old female chicken seller infected with the same strain was taken to hospital two days later and is recovering in intensive care, it said.

[AlaskaDenise]

Re: Woman dies of bird flu in Egypt, fourth in week-WHO

Commentary at

http://www.recombinomics.com/News/12...t_Fatal_4.html

Commentary

Fourth Fatal H5N1 Case in Egypt

Recombinomics Commentary 18:50
December 31, 2007

A woman died of the H5N1 strain of bird flu in northern Egypt on Monday, the country's fourth fatality from the virus in less than a week, the World Health Organisation said.

The above comments add support for a virulent H5N1 circulating in Egypt at this time. It is not clear if the fourth death is one of the two cases (22F, 50F) who were confirmed last week, but remained hospitalized, or is a new confirmed fatal case.

The alarming spike in the number of cases and fatalities (see satellite map) highlights the need for the release of H5N1 sequences from the recent avian and human cases.


.

[AlaskaDenise]

Re: Woman dies of bird flu in Egypt, fourth in week-WHO

Commentary at

http://www.recombinomics.com/News/12...Egypt_CFR.html

Commentary

High H5N1 Case Fatality Rate in Egypt

Recombinomics Commentary 20:20
December 31, 2007

the ministry said a 50-years-old woman of Dumiyadh governorate, north of Cairo, died today as result of infection with the H5N1 virus

The above description of the fourth H5N1 fatality appears to match the third confirmed case (50F), who was admitted last week in critical condition. If so, then four of the first five H5N1 cases in Egypt this season have died. There was also a fatal suspect case who died over the weekend (see satellite map)..

This high death rate is similar to the rate at the beginning of last season, when the first seven confirmed cases died. However, those seven cases died between the end on November, 2006 and mid-February, 2007, while the four recently confirmed fatalities were in the past week. These fatality rates are markedly higher than the end of last season, when only one of seventeen cases died.

The return of a high case fatality rate may be linked to genetic changes in the H5N1. Last season all cases infected H5N1 with M230I were fatal and M230I was in most of the early cases last year.

M230I and with V223I were also found in birds in Gharbiya and Beni Suef last year, so these polymorphisms may be in circulation. The two receptor binding domain changes were among the newly acquired polymorphisms that were appended onto the Egyptian H5N1 background, which was also found in Israel, Gaza, and Djibouti.

However, the Uva Lake strain of H5N1 is also circulating widely in Europe and these sequences likely migrated into Egypt recently. Thus far the only neighbor reporting recent H5N1 infections has been Saudi Arabia, although all confirmed cases have been in poultry. Egypt has also had frequent poultry outbreaks, raising questions about the lack of reporting of H5N1 infections in neighboring countries.

Sequence information on the isolates in Saudi Arabia and Egypt would be useful.


.

[HenryN]

Re: Woman dies of bird flu in Egypt, fourth in week-WHO

Commenatry at

http://www.recombinomics.com/News/12310708/H5N1_Egypt_CFR_Transmission.html

[AlaskaDenise]

Re: Woman dies of bird flu in Egypt, fourth in week-WHO

Commenatry at

http://www.recombinomics.com/News/12...nsmission.html

Commentary

Recombining H5N1 High CFR and Transmission in Egypt

Recombinomics Commentary 22:44
December 31, 2007

Later, health officials said another women, Hanim Ibrahim Attwa, 44, also died today from bird flu at Al-Abbasiya Hospital in Cairo. Ms Attaw was from the Nile delta province of Dimayt, some 200 km north of the Egyptian capital.

The above comments confirm that the fourth H5N1 fatality was one of the patients (listed as 50F in WHO update) who was H5N1 confirmed last week. Thus, four of the five cases confirmed in the past week have died (see satellite map).

This high case fatality rate (CFR) is similar to the rate twelve months ago, at the beginning of last season. However, the frequency of reported infections is much higher, and comparable to the rate in the spring last season, when mild H5N1 cases were reported. Only one of seventeen cases from the spring until the end of last season died. The cases were most frequently reported in March and early April, when no fatalities were reported.

Thus, the current outbreak has combined the high case fatality rate from the beginning of last season, when reported cases were infrequent, with the low case fatality rate in the spring when the reported cases were frequent.

One of the concerns of the frequent mild cases was the creation of conditions leading to recombination which would create a more efficiently transmitted H5N1 with an H5N1 with a high case fatality rate.

Such recombination in Egypt would be likely because of the high concentration of H5N1 (see the mapping of the 922 OIE reported cases here here here here here) which lead to the increased complexity of H5N1 last season.

The release of the sequences from the current avian and human cases remains critical.


.

[AlaskaDenise]

Re: Woman dies of bird flu in Egypt, fourth in week-WHO

On December 17th, Cairo's night temperatures took a 10 degree plunge - to 43F. Lows have mostly been in the 40s since then - a good temperature for incubating influenza.

Lows in this range can be expected through mid-February.

.

[Theresa42]

Re: Woman dies of bird flu in Egypt, fourth in week-WHO

Google-translated from Arabic:

The death of Egyptian companies Avian
GMT 21:55:13 2007 Monday, December 31

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian Avian died on Monday, bringing the number of deaths from the disease in the most populous Arab states to four in less than a week.

The four cases involving women believed to be a result of dealing with sick poultry or Navgah upbringing than what is in courtyards of houses.

The Egyptian Ministry of Health said in a statement that Ferdous Mohamed Haddad, one of the Nile Delta province of Menoufiya transferred to the hospital on Saturday and died in the early morning hours of Monday.

The statement added that they were "suffering from very high temperature and breathing difficulties and the lack of pneumonia after exposure to the safety of birds suspected avian influenza disease."

The statement said "has been placed on a breathing industrial [respirator] and died at dawn today."

Later John Jabbour said WHO official in Egypt said another woman unnamed died as a result of blood viral infection (Watch 5 to 1) in the north of Egypt.

The Ministry of Health said the deceased second alleges ma'am Atwa Ibrahim (50 years old) from Damietta Governorate has died "as a result of being infected with avian influenza disease has been transferred to a hospital Abbasiyah Wednesday 26-12-2007 remained focused on the care respiratory industrial evening until she died today 31-12-2007."

These are the two eighteenth and nineteenth death of bird flu disease in Egypt since the appearance of the virus H5N1 in the country early in 2006.

This is the third winter in Egypt, which is mortality after Kamoun virus during the summer much temperature and a low risk of transmission significantly.

The ministry said on Sunday that a woman of the twenty-fifth died of old infected Avian called Fatima Mohamed Fathi in hospital in the Nile Delta city of Mansoura.

And another woman died in the fifth century old on Wednesday of last week, which loudly Avian Younis in the province of Beni Suef south of Cairo.

Jabbour said that the high mortality rates in recent cases may be the result of a delay in diagnosis of cases after denying patients and their families exposure to infected birds.

The survival of patients more likely to survive if real estate Tammivlo started treatment immediately after onset of symptoms to them.

The government organized a program to immunize birds but difficult to apply compulsory immunization.

Depends about five million house in Egypt for birds as a major source of food and income. The government says that this possibility is difficult to uproot the disease from the country.

And officials say the World Health Organization to avian influenza virus is now endemic in Egypt.

The mortality rate of disease in the world now more than 210 since 2003 with the receipt of incidence in several African and Asian countries as well as Turkey and Azerbaijan.

Health experts fear that transformed the virus into a form spread rapidly from one person to another on a global epidemic that could kill millions of people.

http://www.elaph.com/ElaphWeb/Templates/News.aspx?Id=2007-12-31T215513Z_01_OLR178180_RTRIDST_0_OEGIN-EGY-BIRDFLU-AH3.html

[HenryN]

Re: Woman dies of bird flu in Egypt, fourth in week-WHO

Two Egyptian women die of bird flu virus <!-- END HEADLINE -->
<!-- BEGIN STORY BODY -->By Cynthia Johnston 27 minutes ago


Two Egyptian women died of bird flu on Monday, bringing to four the number of fatalities from the virus in the most populous Arab country in less than a week as Egypt emerged from a warm-weather lull in avian flu cases.
All four deaths involved women and were believed to have resulted from exposure to sick or dead backyard birds.
Firdaus Mohamed Hadad of Menoufia province in the Nile Delta region north of Cairo was taken to hospital on Saturday and died early on Monday, Egypt's Health Ministry said in a statement.
"She suffered from a high fever and difficulty breathing and had a pulmonary infection after coming into contact with birds suspected of being infected with avian flu," the statement said. "She was placed on a respirator but died at dawn on Monday."
Later, John Jabbour, an Egypt-based World Health Organisation official, told Reuters a second woman had died of bird flu in northern Egypt. The health ministry identified the woman as Hanem Ibrahim from Damietta, also in the Nile Delta.
The four Egyptian deaths from bird flu over the past week broke a 5-month pause in human cases in Egypt and brought to 19 the number of Egyptians who have died of the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus since it emerged in Egypt in early 2006.
It is also the third winter that the virus has struck after lying low during Egypt's hot summers, when it is much less likely to spread from one carrier to another.
On Sunday, a 25-year-old Egyptian woman died of bird flu in the Nile Delta city of Mansoura while another woman, Ola Younis, died of bird flu on Wednesday in Beni Suef province south of Cairo, the first case of this winter season.
Jabbour said the high fatality rate in the recent cases was likely due to a delay in diagnosis after patients and their family members denied exposure to infected birds.
"All of the new cases have exposure to sick or dead backyard birds. ... The problem is the delay in reporting that they have been exposed," he said. Patients are most likely to survive if they start treatment with Tamiflu early after symptoms occur.
Around 5 million households in Egypt depend on poultry as a main source of food and income, and the government has said this makes it unlikely the disease can be eradicated despite a large-scale poultry vaccination programme. WHO officials have said the bird flu virus was now considered endemic in Egypt.
Deaths from bird flu now total more than 210 worldwide since 2003 and have been reported in several African and Asian countries, as well as in Turkey and Azerbaijan. Egypt, with 43 confirmed human cases, has been the single hardest-hit country outside of Asia.
Health experts fear the virus could mutate into a form that spreads easily from one person to another, possibly triggering a pandemic that could kill millions.
(Writing by Cynthia Johnston; Editing by Stephen Weeks)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080101/sc_nm/birdflu_egypt_dc&printer=1;_ylt=Al19YkR3wrobg96q6d3vPSIiANEA