Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Two Egyptian children test positive for bird flu
CAIRO, March 27 (Reuters) - Two Egyptian children have tested positive for the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus, bringing the total number of human cases of the disease in the most populous Arab country to 29, Egypt’s health ministry said on Tuesday.
“There are two new cases of bird flu,” Amr Kandeel, head of communicable disease control at the health ministry, told Reuters. “It is from exposure to dead birds.”
The health ministry identified the children as 6-year-old Rihab Aboul Magd of the southern province of Qena and 5-year-old Mahmoud Gumaa Mohamed Hassan of Minya in central Egypt.
The children, a girl and a boy, had tested positive on Monday after being admitted to hospital suffering from high fevers. They were in stable condition, Kandeel said.
Bird flu story source: Reuters’ AlertNet