Woman dies of bird flu in Egypt, fourth death this year

Hossam Abdel-Ghaffar, spokesman, Egypt Health Ministry, said on Monday in Cairo, that the country has recorded another death of bird flu, the fourth in the country this year.

He said a 47-year-old woman in Assiut province, a rural area where an avian flu death was reported last week, has also died of the virus. Continue..

Abdel-Ghaffar said there are two other cases in treatment, bringing the total number of cases in Egypt to 20 this year so far.
“This includes four deaths as well as six recoveries and 10 cases still under treatment,’’ he said.
The World Health Organisation says there has been a jump in the number of avian flu infections in people in Egypt.
It says there does not appear to have been any major genetic change in the flu strain to explain the rise in human cases.

It said more than 10 people died from the disease in Egypt in 2014.
The organisation said that between Dec.4 and Jan. 6 there had been 18 new laboratory-confirmed human cases in Egypt, including four deaths, the highest ever monthly number of human cases in the country.
It said that whenever bird flu viruses are circulating in poultry, there was a risk of sporadic infections or small clusters of human cases.
Egypt’s avian flu cases have largely been in poor rural areas in the south, where villagers tend to keep and slaughter poultry products themselves.