Deadly bird flu kills Egyptian woman as virus spreads
Bernama, 19 Mar 2006

AFP Photo
An Egyptian veterinarian sprays disinfectant in the ostrich enclosure at Giza zoo. Egypt said that a 30-year-old woman has died of the highly pathogenic H5N1 bird flu, making her the country's first human victim as the virus spread to birds in neighboring Israel.
 

CAIRO (AFP) - Egypt said that a 30-year-old woman has died of the highly pathogenic H5N1 bird flu, making her the country's first human victim as the virus spread to birds in neighboring Israel.

The woman's death raised alarm in the Middle East, where two other human fatalities resulting from bird flu have already been reported in Iraq.

A 40-year-old Kurdish man from the northern town of Sulaimaniyah died in February, about three weeks after his teenage niece succumbed to the virus.

Elsewhere in the region, birds have been reported infected with the H5N1 strain of avian influenza in Iran, Israel and Kuwait.

A less potent form of the virus was detected in Saudi Arabia. The H5N1 strain of bird flu, its most aggressive form, has killed nearly 100 people worldwide, according to the World Health Organization, and seen millions of birds destroyed, amounting to huge losses for farmers.

H5N1 is an avian influenza subtype with pandemic potential, since it might ultimately adapt into a strain that is contagious among humans.

The Egyptian government said the victim, Amal Mohammed Ismail, who maintained a domestic bird farm despite a ban on the practice since the arrival of bird flu in the country last month, died of a fever after she was hospitalized with flu-like symptoms.

"It should be noted that the woman reared fowl domestically, a number of which had died 10 days ago," the Supreme National Committee to Combat Bird Flu said in a statement. "At that point the woman slaughtered and cleaned the remaining fowl herself," it added.

The woman was first admitted to a hospital in Qaliubiya just north of Cairo and then moved on Wednesday to the fever hospital in Abasiya, Cairo. The Bird Flu Committee said she died on Friday, not after a two-week hospitalization period as earlier reported by state television.

"She was isolated from other patients in a private room and transferred to the hospital's intensive care unit, where specimens were taken for testing at the central laboratories of the ministry of health and population," the Bird Flu Committee said. "Testing proved positive for avian flu."

The Cairo-based US Naval Medical Research Unit (NAMRU) also confirmed it was a human case of H5N1. A NAMRU spokesman, Andrew Stigall, told AFP that he was not aware of any other suspected human cases of H5N1 in the country.

Egypt is on a major route for migratory birds, at the crossroads between Asia and Africa. An outbreak of the most pathogenic strain of the virus that originated in Asia was seen as inevitable after seven birds were found infected in February.

Meanwhile, authorities in neighboring Israel were scrambling to contain the Jewish state's first outbreak after tests on dead fowl confirmed the lethal H5N1 strain. The Israeli authorities believe the virus was brought in by migratory birds making their spring passage from Africa to Europe.

However, four farm workers who had been admitted to hospital were declared free of the virus, as officials moved swiftly to reassure an anxious Israeli public that a pandemic was not in the works.

A ban on all exports of poultry products remained in force as agriculture ministry vets began culling hundreds of thousands of chickens and turkeys in four infected farms across southern and central Israel.

Israel banned all meat imports from the Gaza Strip on February 17 following the discovery of the deadly H5N1 strain in birds in Egypt, though no traces of bird flu have been detected in the Palestinian territories.

Tens of thousands of storks passed through Israel earlier this week at the start of a season which will see an estimated half a million wild birds pass.

In November, Kuwait was the first country in the region to discover the H5N1 strain, which it detected in a flamingo. Since then, Iran has reported finding the H5N1 strain in more than 100 wild swans and Saudi Arabia said around three dozen falcons were found to have a lesser form of the virus, known as H5.

Four people in nearby Turkey have also died after coming in contact with birds infected with avian flu in the east of the country. In addition, human deaths have been recorded in Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam.