Egypt confirms 34th case of H5N1 strain

Health officials in Egypt have confirmed that a teenage girl from Cairo's Shubra district has tested positive for the highly pathogenic H5N1 virus, bringing the overall number of Egyptians who have got infected with the disease to 34 since it appeared in the country last year in February.

A Health Ministry spokesman Abdel Rahman Shahin reported Sunday that a 15-year-old girl, identified as Marina Kamil Mikhail from Cairo's Shubra district has been diagnosed with bird flu, the very first human case to hit the capital of the country.

Marina, the 34th person in Egypt to be infected with the disease, was admitted to hospital on Thursday (April, 5) with a very high fever, health ministry spokesperson said.

The girl, who according to health ministry got the H5N1 bird flu by coming in contact with birds who were infected with the virus, was treated with Tamiflu, a drug that is commonly used to treat the disease, and is in a stable condition, the health official said, adding that, the rest of her family is being tested for the disease.

The recently diagnosed case follows a two-year-old girl, named Fatma Farouk Abdul Gawwad from central Egypt, who had tested positive for the virus on Thursday and was transferred to hospital a day before with high fever. She was being treated with the same anti-viral drug, Tamiflu.

In Egypt, which accounts for the highest number of confirmed human bird flu cases outside Asia, the virus has engulfed 13 human lives since it first surfaced in the country's poultry a year ago, making it one of the worst-affected countries outside Asia.

The most common way to get the bird flu in Egypt is from household birds, the ministry spokesman stated. Most of the victims infected in Egypt are women, as well as some children, who had contact with live birds kept in the backyards of homes.

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, has deadly H5N1 strain has infected 288 people and killed 170 of them, mostly in Southeast Asia, and the outbreaks have been confirmed in around 50 countries and territories, according to data from the WHO.

The Egyptian government says its national health ministry along with UNICEF is conducting a vigorous campaign to combat the spread of the virus through vaccinations and raising awareness, yet cases continue to appear.

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

Meanwhile, Cambodian government on Monday launched a week-long bird flu awareness blitz following the country's seventh death from the H5N1 virus. The campaign will feature marches and programmes conducted by government officials and bird flu specialists from the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), and will centralize on rural areas, considering them most at risk for outbreaks.

WHO, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) in collaboration with United States are looking into minimizing the risk of spreading of this disease and taking steps to avoid this to turn into a pandemic on a global level.