An elderly woman died of the H5N1 strain of bird flu in Egypt on Thursday, marking the country’s sixth fatal case of the virus in humans, a World Health Organisation official (WHO) said.
”We have some basic information that she was a 75-year-old woman from al-Minya” in southern Egypt, WHO regional health regulation officer John Jabbour told Agence France-Presse.
”She was admitted into hospital yesterday and she died today,” he said.
”This was due to contact with infected birds,” Jabbour added.
Out of the 14 human cases of avian influenza that have been reported among Egyptians since mid-March, six turned out to be fatal and eight people recovered after being treated with Tamiflu.
A total of 208 people worldwide are confirmed by the WHO as having been infected, out of which 115 have died. But experts say many cases go unreported.
According to Egypt’s supreme committee to combat bird flu, 20 out of the country’s 26 governorates have been affected by the bird-flu epidemic.
Egypt, the most populous country in the Arab world, is on a major route for migratory birds and is the hardest-hit non-Asian country since the bird flu-epidemic broke out in 2003.
Four people also died of the highly pathogenic virus in Turkey.
The highest number of fatalities in the world has been reported in Vietnam, where bird flu has claimed 42 lives, according to WHO statistics.
Health officials and experts say the rate of contamination from diseased birds to humans is high in Egypt, where people often come in contact with the animals and their droppings. — AFP
