Another Bird Flu Case In Egypt

Europe has yet to get one single case of human bird flu...

Following on from the news story about the 4 year old boy who was infected with the deadly form of the bird flu virus H5N1 it now appears that a ten year old girl has also contracted avian flu. The news that comes from the Egyptian Ministry of Health is officially the twenty fifth case of bird flu in humans in Egypt. The public announcement said that the girl has been taken to hospital in a town called Aswan which is just under 500km south of the capital of Egypt, Cairo.

Slightly worrying is the fact that the area in which she lived was an urban area and not a country area and it is well known that all contagious diseases are far more easily spread in places where there is elevated population density and more they have difficulty spreading in areas such as the countryside where less people live.

As the story is hot off the press not too many extra details are known other than those which were given in the official version by the Egyptian Health Ministry. The any other details that are known are that she is being given the bird flu drug Tamiflu and that her condition is stable at present. The family of the girl have been placed in quarantine and under observation also. How exactly she came into contact with an infected bird is not yet known and the authorities are endeavoring to find out.

The bird flu virus has been found in birds all over the world however the bird flu in humans has mainly been restricted to the Asian countries where it has killed over 160 people over the last few years.  Europe has yet to get one single case of human bird flu however it seems to be coming closer and closer to Europe as quite a few cases have now been recorded in Egypt.