Egypt confirms 24th case of H5N1 strain

Egypt's health ministry late on Saturday confirmed that an Egyptian 4-year old boy has tested positive for the Bird flu virus, bringing the overall number of Egyptians who have tested positive for the disease to 24 since it appeared in the country last year in February.

The health ministry said that a four-year-old boy named Mohammed Mahmoud Ibrahim has tested positive for bird flu in the Egyptian Nile Delta province of Dakahlia, the second confirmed case detected in the region.

The young boy, who was diagnosed with the H5N1 strain of bird flu on Saturday, was transferred to a hospital around three days ago with a fever and cold symptoms.

Ibrahim, who according to health ministry officials contracted the virus from domestic birds raised by his family, is receiving medical treatment at Manshiyat Al Bakri children's hospital in Cairo.

He is getting treatment for high temperature and pneumonia symptoms that are usually manifested in those carrying the virus. The boy is getting the antiviral drug Tamiflu. Ibrahim’s family members are also under observation.

"He is in a good condition," Amr Kandeel, head of communicable disease control at the ministry, told media.

So far, thirteen of the 24 Egyptians who have contracted the H5N1 strain have died, making the country the hardest hit by the bird flu outside Asia. Nearly all the victims infected in Egypt are women, as well as some children, who had contact with live birds kept in the backyards of homes.

"We do not wish illness to anyone but we are happy that people are reporting symptoms earlier," Hassan el-Bushra, regional adviser for communicable disease surveillance for the World Health Organization (WHO), said.

The recently diagnosed case follows a four-year-old girl, named Sara Essayyed Borhan, also from the Nile Delta region of Dakahlia, who had tested positive for the virus in early March and was transferred to Cairo's Manshiet al-Bakri hospital and was being treated with Tamiflu.

The girl, who is in a stable condition, was reportedly in contact with domestic poultry. Her family members had tested negative for the virus.

Egypt is the Arab world's most populous country with more than 73 million people and a major route for migratory bird, consumes about 800 million fowl every year. The country detected the first bird flu case in dead poultry Feb 17, 2006, which then spread to 20 of the country's 26 governorates, and reported the first human bird flu case last year on March 18.

Bird flu initially caused panic across Egypt that saw many Egyptians getting rid of their birds and did extensive damage to the poultry industry.

Since the virus re-emerged in Asia in 2003, the virus has engulfed 168 lives worldwide and the outbreaks have been confirmed in around 50 countries and territories, according to data from the WHO.

Countries with confirmed human deaths due to the H5N1 strain are: Azerbaijan, Cambodia, China, Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Laos, Nigeria, Thailand, Turkey and Vietnam. Health officials worry the strain could mutate into a form that spreads easily among human, sparking a pandemic.

UNICEF is working with the national health ministry to combat the deadly virus in Egypt.