Egypt reports 4th suspected human bird flu case
22/3/2006 15:34
Egyptian Health Minister Hatem el- Gabali said yesterday that a fourth
suspected human bird flu case was reported in the governorate of Gharbiyah in
the Nile Delta near Qalyoubiya where three other cases had been
discovered.
The official MENA news agency quoted el-Gabali as saying that
Mohamed Mahmoud Abdel-Ghani Ghobashi, 17, showed symptoms of bird flu and that
he had worked on his father's poultry farm where 2, 825 out of 4,000 birds died
on March 18 and 19.
The latest report has brought to four the total number of
suspected human bird flu cases in the populous north African country in less
than a week.
On Friday, a woman who had reportedly been raising chickens at
home died of avian virus.
On Sunday, Egypt announced its second human case, a
30-year-old man who worked on a chicken farm.
On Monday, el-Gabali said that
a 30-year-old woman had been infected with the deadly disease. The woman also
raised chickens and had slaughtered some of them half a month ago.
Egypt
reported its first case of the H5N1 strain of bird flu among wild birds and
poultry on Feb. 17 and the government has since launched an aggressive campaign
to bring the spread of the disease under control.
The deadly H5N1 strain has
killed about 100 people worldwide since late 2003, according to the World Health
Organization.
Most victims were infected after close contact with sick
birds.
The virus currently can only jump from birds to humans, but scientists
fear that it could mutate into a form capable of passing easily among humans and
thus spark a global human flu pandemic which might kill
millions.
Xinhua
|
