Six-year-old Egyptian boy contracts bird flu

April 6, 2009

The Egyptian Health Ministry reported on Sunday that a six-year-old Egyptian boy contracted bird flu, the sixth such incident in a month. The child was hospitalised on March 28, reported to be in critical condition after treatment, and is breathing with an artificial respirator.

The state news agency MENA revealed that the boy's name was Ali Mahmoud Ali Somaa, and that he was from Qalyubia, a province located along the Nile Delta, located about forty kilometres north of Egypt's capital of Cairo.

The death toll of the cases of the bird flu virus in humans in Egypt is 23, with the first incident reported in March 2006.

Statistics from the World Health Organisation's (WHO) website say that 413 people in fifteen countries have been infected with the H5N1 virus; out of those, 256 have died.