Egyptian woman [Nadia Mohamed Abdul Hafez] tests positive for bird flu - WHO

[Theresa42]

Egyptian woman tests positive for bird flu - WHO
14 Feb 2007 13:08:11 GMT
Source: Reuters

By Cynthia Johnston

CAIRO, Feb 14 (Reuters) - A 37-year-old Egyptian woman has tested positive for the deadly bird flu virus, bringing the number of confirmed cases in Egypt to 21, a World Health Organisation official said on Wednesday.

"There is a case, 37-years old, from Fayoum. She has been transferred to Abbasiya (hospital) in good condition," said Hassan el-Bushra, regional adviser for communicable diseases surveillance for the World Health Organisation.

A Health Ministry statement identified the woman as Nadia Abdel-Hafez from Fayoum province southwest of Cairo, the same area where a 17-year-old girl died of bird flu this month.

Egypt has the highest known cluster of human cases outside Asia, with 12 deaths out of the 21 infected cases since the virus first surfaced in Egyptian poultry a year ago.

The woman, who kept birds in her home, was admitted to hospital on Feb. 12 after coming into contact with infected poultry, officials said.

Most people infected in Egypt had been in contact with poultry kept at home. Bird flu initially caused panic across the country and did extensive damage to the poultry industry.

The Egyptian government said last month poultry production had recovered to 1.8 million birds a day, just short of the 2 million produced before the outbreak.

MUTATION NOT SUSPECTED

Officials said the woman was responding well to treatment, and there was no indication she was infected with a mutated strain of the H5N1 virus that had shown "moderate" resistance to the frontline anti-viral drug Tamiflu.

"We are not suspecting mutation anymore," said Cairo-based WHO official John Jabbour. "This case is stable. It is responding to treatment."

The mutated strain of the virus killed three Egyptians in the Nile Delta province of Gharbiya in December, according to the Egyptian health ministry. The mutation has not resurfaced.

Officials have said the 17-year-old infected earlier this month in Fayoum died because she did not get treatment early enough, not because of the mutation. She was initially treated for seasonal flu after her family denied she had come in contact with infected birds.

The WHO reaffirmed last May that patients should get Tamiflu as a frontline treatment for bird flu, but said in certain cases doctors may consider using it along with amantadine, an older class of effective flu drugs.

Health experts fear the H5N1 virus could mutate into a form that passes easily from human to human, sparking a pandemic that could kill millions. The virus has killed 166 people worldwide since 2003, mostly in Asia. (Additional reporting by Alaa Shahine)

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L14468605.htm

[Theresa42]

Machine-translated from Arabic:

A new human injury by the bird flu in Egypt
Feb 14, 2007

Cairo - 14 - 2 ( an universe ) - The Egyptian Ministry of Health declared today the occurrence of a new human injury by the bird flu disease In one of Al Fayum Governate villages in south of Cairo they described their condition that they are "settling" so that the injury no. 21 is since the emergence of the disease in Egypt.

And official spokesman Ministry of Health and Population doctor Abdul Rahman Shahin in a press release mentioned that The new injury of a girl aged 37 years and her giving the necessary treatment took place.

Also he pointed that it is the epidemic investigation work neighbour to all the injured family individuals that were suffering from a rise in the temperature and a pneumonia.

And the Egyptian Ministry of Health has declared a week ago the death of a girl after its injury by the bird flu virus so that the death toll rises due to the injury by the disease to 12 case since the emergence of the disease in Egypt in February in 2006.

And Cairo hosted yesterday an expanded international conference that the World Health Organization through its regional office of the average east organized around the way of a disease confrontation of the bird flu disease in its change condition is to an international human epidemic.

http://www.kuna.net.kw/home/Story.as...ar&DSNO=952294

[Theresa42]

English version of above article. Hat-tip, christian!

New case of bird flu in Egypt
KUNA - Today 14 Feb 2007 | 17:49 KT

CAIRO, Feb 14 (KUNA) -- A new case of bird flu was announced by the Egyptian Health Ministry on Wednesday, bringing the total to 21 cases since the outbreak of the disease in the country last year.

Ministry spokesman Dr. Abdulrahman Shaheen told a press conference a 37-year-old woman from Fayoum, southern Egypt, had contracted the virus and was currently being treated with "Tamiflu".

Her family was under medical examination, he said, and the female had been suffering from high fever and bronchitis.

The ministry had announced last week the death of a 17-year-old girl from bird flu, bring the number of deaths to 12 since the disease appeared in Egypt in February 2006.

Egypt had hosted yesterday an international conference organized by the World Health Organization (WHO) on strategies to combat the bird flu pandemic.

http://www.kuna.net.kw/home/Story.as...ar&DSNO=952294

[Theresa42]

Egypt reports new bird flu case
Feb 14, 2007

Report says woman infected with deadly bird flu virus is 21st case since disease first appeared in country.

CAIRO - Egypt announced on Wednesday that a woman had been infected with the deadly bird flu virus, the 21st case since the disease first appeared in the country, according to the official MENA news agency.

Nadia Mohammed Abdel Hafez, 37, from the oasis province of Fayyum south of the capital, went to hospital on Monday complaining of a high temperature and bronchitis, health ministry spokesman Abdel Rahman Shaheen said.

The last person to die from the disease in Egypt, a teenage girl, also came from Fayyum.

Shaheen said Abdel Hafez had been transferred to a government facility in Cairo, where she is being treated with the anti-bird flu drug Tamiflu.

Twelve people have died from the virulent H5N1 strain of avian influenza in Egypt, the worst-hit country outside Asia. Most have been women.

The latest case comes as the World Health Organization is holding a conference in Cairo on the disease which has claimed more than 160 lives around the world.

The vast majority of human cases in Egypt were reported in domestic rearings and the authorities have struggled to educate the public on the dangers of backyard farming, a significant source of income for many poor households.

http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=19562

[HenryN]

Egyptian woman tests positive for H5N1 bird flu strain

Updated 2/14/2007 8:34 AM ET
CAIRO (AP) — An Egyptian woman has tested H5N1 positive, bringing the total number of persons infected with the deadly bird flu strain in the country to 21, a World Health Organization official here said on Wednesday.
The 37 year-old woman, from the oasis town of Fayoum, some 45 miles south of Cairo, was moved to a hospital for contagious diseases in the Egyptian capital, WHO's John Jabbour said.
Twenty-one people have been infected with the deadly H5N1 strain in Egypt so far, with 12 of them dying from the disease. Of the 12 deaths, 11 have been women.
Almost all cases reported in Egypt were among families raising domestic poultry and women accounted for most of the patients. In Egypt, women and girls tend to look after chickens and turkeys kept in backyards, making them more vulnerable to avian flu.
Since the avian influenza outbreak a year ago, Egypt has been one of the countries worst afflicted with the deadly bird flu outside Asia, where the disease originated.
Also, Egypt has seen an increase in the death rate from the bird flu infection over the winter months, which sparked fears that the strain of the virus may be mutating to a more drug resistant form.
Egypt's latest case was identified as Nadia Mohammad Abdel Hafez. The woman was first admitted to a clinic her hometown of Fayoum on Monday, with high fever and symptoms of pneumonia, Jabbour said.
Once she tested positive, she was transferred to Cairo but is reported to be in stable condition.
Bird flu was first detected in Egypt in February 2006 and has spread to at least 19 of the country's 26 provinces. Egypt's latest fatality was a 17-year-old girl who died on Feb. 5.
The H5N1 strain has hit at least 45 countries and killed more than 166 people worldwide.
On Tuesday, Egypt's Health Minister, Hatem el-Gabaly, warned that health officials here must be particularly alert to the seriousness of the crisis.
Speaking to an international conference on bird flu in Cairo, el-Gabaly also blamed the international community for not providing enough aid to African nations as they struggle to deal with the spread of the deadly virus.
The three-day conference, hosted by the WHO, brought together officials from governments and international organizations to discuss coordinating efforts to combat bird flu, including how to inform people about the disease in case of a possible pandemic.

Find this article at: http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/...bird-flu_x.htm

[HenryN]

Commentary at

http://www.recombinomics.com/News/02...m_Another.html

[Mellie]

Commentary

Another H5N1 Confirmed Case in Fayyoum
Recombinomics Commentary
February 14, 2007

Nadia Mohammed Abdel Hafez, 37, from the oasis province of Fayyum south of the capital, went to hospital on Monday complaining of a high temperature and bronchitis, health ministry spokesman Abdel Rahman Shaheen said.

The last person to die from the disease in Egypt, a teenage girl, also came from Fayyum.

Shaheen said Abdel Hafez had been transferred to a government facility in Cairo, where she is being treated with the anti-bird flu drug Tamiflu.

The latest confirmed H5N1 case in Egypt is from Fayyoum, as was the prior case. These two cases were also near the third case this year, in Beni Suef. The sequence of the HA and NA from the Beni Suef case was similar to the case from Fayyoum. Both sequences had distinctive polymorphisms indicating the H5N1 was the Qinghai strain from Egypt, but the two recent sequences were readily distinguished from the prio three cases this season, which included two sequences from the Gharbiya cluster, which had the Tamiflu resistance marker, N294S. The two recent sequences also did not have HA M230I, which was in the fist three human H5N1 HA sequences of this season.

Although the two recent sequences from patients south of Cairo did not have some of the polymorphisms seen in earlier isolates, the sequences did have additional evidence of acquisitions via recombination. Both sequences had the identical 3 nucleotide deletion in HA. Since both sequences were similar, the common deletion was expected. However, the same deletion was in 2006 H5N1 from Hunan. The two Hunan sequences, A/chicken/Hunan/2246/2006 and A/chicken/Hunan/2292/2006 were not the Qinghai strain and had a novel cleavage site REGGRRKR, which was quite distinct from the common Qinghai cleavage site of GERRRKKR. The remained of the HA and NA sequences were quite distinct, yet the four sequences had the same 3 nucleotide deletion, strongly suggesting that the deletion was not a coincidental match, but that the deletion was acquired by the Qinghai sequence via recombination.

The most recent H5N1 also had S227N, which has also been seen in additional Qinghai isolates from Egypt and Turkey, providing additional support for recombination.

It seems likely that several of these features will be in the H5N1 from the latest case.

[Theresa42]

Originally Posted by Niman (via Mellie!)

...the prio[r] three cases this season, which included two sequences from the Gharbiya cluster, which had the Tamiflu resistance marker, N294S.

From the Egyptian Ministry of Health today:

H5N1 deaths not Tamiflu resistant
14/2/2007

The two latest bird flu deaths in Egypt showed no signs of the mutant virus which is moderately resistant to the antiviral medicine Tamiflu and which killed three people in December, the health minister said yesterday 13 / 2 / 2007.

Dr Hatem el-Gabali also appealed for more international aid to help Africa deal with bird flu outbreaks, saying that the continent had more difficult problems than Asia because of poverty.

Known as “294S”, the mutated strain of the H5N1 virus was first detected in 2005 in a teenage girl in Vietnam who survived.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) said in January the virus had resurfaced in two members of one family, a factory worker and his teenage niece, in a Nile Delta village in Egypt.

Gabali said the mutated virus also killed a third member of the same family in December.

“Tests confirmed our initial findings that in those three cases Tamiflu was not effective enough. But the case that followed and the one after showed that Tamiflu was effective,” Gabali told reporters at a WHO conference on Global Pandemic Influenza Communications in Cairo.

“Therefore the United Nations until this moment has not changed its treatment strategy,” he was quoted by Reuters as saying.

http://birdflu.sis.gov.eg/html/flu01021161.htm

[Theresa42]

Originally Posted by Theresa42

Thought I'd take a look at the sus cases from a geographical point-of-view -- see if any are from the same villages/towns/cities, etc. From Al Fayyum governorate:

(...)

Atsa center/Atessa = Itsa city & district (2 sus [1 died] + 3 negs)

01/15 - Nora Saber Abdalmenji (23), died - from the city of Atessa/Atsa

02/10 & 02/11 - Naglaa Ahmed Atiya (24) - housewife from the village of Al Hit facility in Atsa center and its condition is critical - double pneumonia - in contact with bf pos poultry - NEG

02/10 & 02/11 - Hoda Kamel Ismail (40) from Dmou's facility Atsa center - double pneumonia - in contact with bf pos poultry - NEG

02/10 & 02/11 - Hussein Shehata on Shahat (30) - from Arafa mill Atsa center - double pneumonia - in contact with bf pos poultry - NEG

02/12 - Mohamed Qorani Ramada (9) - from the farm of Arafa belonging to Rahmi's facility in Etsa district

http://www.flutrackers.com/forum/sho...3&postcount=12

Machine-translated from Arabic:

A new human injury by the bird flu of a girl from Al Fayyum
Feb 14, 2007

She made sure today "Wednesday" the occurrence of a new human injury by the bird flu disease and she is the 21st injury since the emergence of the disease of a girl from Atsa center a village "they promised the line" [منيا الحيط] Al Fayum Governate.

And doctor Abdul Rahman Shahin the spokesman to the Ministry of Health and Population stated that the new injury of the girl Nadia Mohamed Abdul Hafez 37 years and that entered a hospital Al Fayyum fevers on current 12 February and she suffers from a rise in the temperature with a presence a pneumonia.

http://www.alwafd.org/v2/News/news_d...p?news_id=1495

[Theresa42]

Front page, El Akhbar...

Google-translated from Arabic:

Infection of avian influenza 21
Lady of Fayoum
Feb 15, 2007

The Ministry of Health and Population issued a statement yesterday vowing [confirming] Asa by 'Nadia Mohamed Abdalhafez', aged 37 usage what contracted avian flu village Mena Hait Governor e Fayoum injury is No. 21 in Egypt. And the patient entered the hospital pathogenesis of Fayoum on 12 P Brayer suffering from a high temperature.

http://www.elakhbar.org.eg/issues/17105/0100.html

Minyat Al Hayt:
http://www.travelpost.com/AF/Egypt/A...yt/map/5951522

[MHSC]

---

Avian influenza - situation in Egypt - update 4


15 February 2007

The Egyptian Ministry of Health and Population has announced a new human case of avian influenza A(H5N1) virus infection. The case was confirmed by the Egyptian Central Public Health Laboratory and by the US Naval Medical Research Unit No.3 (NAMRU-3).


The 37-year-old female from Fayyoum Governorate was admitted to hospital with symptoms on 12 February 2007 and her condition remains stable. She was involved in the slaughter and defeathering of sick birds one week prior to the onset of illness.


Of the 21 cases confirmed to date in Egypt, 12 have been fatal.



http://www.who.int/csr/don/2007_02_15/en/print.html

[Blue]

Right. So why do the articles say February? Is this recycled news?

[HenryN]

Originally Posted by Blue

Right. So why do the articles say February? Is this recycled news?

No, its an activated old thread. There is no news (recycled or otherwise)