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Egyptian health minister calls for world coordination on bird flu
Egyptian Minister of Health Hatem el- Gabali on Tuesday called for international coordination to deal with any potential bird flu pandemic, the official MENA news agency reported.
Gabali made the appeal at the opening of the second world conference on coordinating communications in case of a bird flu pandemic.
Gabali expressed hope that more funds used for combating the disease will be channelled to Africa, which was facing the same threat of the disease as Asia.
He also hailed the cooperation between Egypt and the World Health Organization (WHO) as well as its regional office for east of the Mediterranean since the first case of bird flu appeared in Egypt in February last year.
Egypt was facing a virulent strain of the bird flu which could not be totally put under control, Gabali added.
During a meeting on Sunday, el-Gabali reviewed Egypt's plan to face up to the spread of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu with a WHO delegation.
Egypt found the first bird flu case in dead poultry on Feb. 17, 2006 and then the virus spread to 20 of the country's 26 governorates.
The populous Arab country reported first human bird flu case on March 18 of 2006. Since then, 12 people have died of the fatal virus.
According to statistics, Egypt is the fifth most affected country in the world and the worst-hit outside Asia.
Source: Xinhua