Egypt reports second human case of bird flu
Egypt reported its second human case of avian flu today while Israel continued its precautionary culling of hundreds of thousands of birds.
Neighbouring Jordan, which is so far free of the deadly H5N1 strain, responded to the developments by stepping up measures against the virus.
A 30-year-old Egyptian man, who worked on a chicken farm in the province of Qalyoubiya, was the second human infected by the virus in Egypt, the Health Ministry said.
The man was recovering in the hospital after being admitted on Thursday with a fever, Deputy Health Minister Nasser el-Sayyed said.
Police identified the man as Mohammed Bahaaeddin Abdel-Menem from the village of Noqbas.
Villagers were uneasy after the announcement.
Ibrahim al-Gazzar, a cousin of the latest victim, said he doubted that other villagers were educated enough to seek medical treatment. “They would think it was a normal flu – that will be a disaster.”
Um Mohammed, a 35-year-old widow and mother of two, said that although she had told authorities that her birds were dying, “They did nothing to help me.”
“Day after day, I watched my chickens die. I felt as though I was handcuffed,” she said.
The country’s first known human case, a woman who died on Friday, was from the same province, north of Cairo. The two victims had not had any contact and were from different villages, el-Sayyed told The Associated Press.
The Egypt-based US Naval Medical Research was conducting additional tests to confirm whether the case was H5N1, the Health Ministry said in a statement run by the state Middle East News Agency.
Egypt continues to import Tamiflu and will have stockpiled 500,000 capsules by the end of September, Health Minister Hatem el-Gabali said.
Egypt discovered its first cases of the virus in birds last month.
Turkey and Iraq are the only other Middle Eastern countries where humans have died of the virus.
Israeli veterinary officials proceeded with the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of birds as new tests came close to confirming Israel’s first outbreak of the deadly bird flu. The alert was raised on Wednesday when thousands of turkeys started dying.
Agriculture Ministry spokeswoman Dafna Varisca said “it’s very close to 100%” sure that the virus has spread to Israel.
Devoting today’s weekly Cabinet meeting to the apparent outbreak, acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert pledged to form a task force to handle compensating farmers for their losses. Damage is expected to run into millions of dollars.
Olmert told the Cabinet that nothing indicated that the disease had spread to humans.
Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz said Israeli military officials have been in touch with the Palestinians, and there was no indication that bird flu had spread to the West Bank or Gaza Strip.
Jordanian Health Minister Saeed Darwazeh declared that the country was still free of the H5N1 virus.
Nonetheless, it was stepping up its monitoring efforts by visiting farms and looking for any increase in poultry deaths, said Adel al-Balbissi, director of the unit for combating bird flu at Jordan’s Centre for Disease Control.
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