65th human bird flu case reported In Egypt

April 19, 2009

The Egyptian Health Ministry stated Friday that a 25-year-old woman from a northern neighborhood in the capital of Cairo had contracted the deadly H5N1 strain of the bird flu. Health Ministry spokesman Abdel Rahman Shahine said the woman had started to show symptoms on April 7 after coming into contact with dead birds.

Some 23 Egyptians have died after contracting the virus. Most came into contact with infected domestic birds in a country where roughly 5 million households depend on domestically raised poultry as a significant source of food and income.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said this month it was concerned some Egyptians may carry the bird flu virus without showing symptoms, which could give it more of a chance to mutate to a strain that spreads easily among humans.

According to the latest statistics of the WHO on its website, some 418 people in 15 countries and regions have contracted the virus and 257 of them died of the disease.