Bird flu doing the rounds in Egypt

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has confirmed that a Egyptian 4-year-old boy has tested positive for bird flu; he is the country's 24th case.

This is the second confirmed case in Dakahlia; the first in early March was in four-year-old girl who had also been in contact with domestic poultry.

The Egyptian Health Ministry says Mohamed Mahmoud Ibrahim who came from the Nile Delta province of Dakahlia became ill after coming into contact with infected poultry in the first three days of March and his family are all being tested for the deadly virus.

According to Amr Kandeel, the head of communicable disease control at the ministry, he is currently in a good condition and has been given the antiviral drug Tamiflu.

Officials at the WHO say Ibrahim developed symptoms on Wednesday and was hospitalised a day later with a high fever.

The WHO says they are pleased that people are reporting symptoms earlier because they believe the high mortality rate can be attributed to victims failing to report to hospitals fast enough after developing symptoms, either because they did not suspect bird flu or because they fear their poultry will be culled.

Outside of Asia, Egypt has had the largest reported bird flu cluster, with 13 deaths out of the 24 reported human cases.

As in many parts of Asia, millions of households in Egypt rely on their backyard poultry to survive and it is commonly the main source of food and income.

The government has admitted that this scenario makes it unlikely the disease will be eradicated.

The initial panic caused by the bird flu outbreak caused extensive damage to the poultry industry and many people disposed of their backyard poultry.

Poultry production had since recovered to 2 million birds a day, the same level as before the outbreak and people in rural areas have resumed raising poultry domestically to sell at public markets.

Bird flu remains essentially a disease of birds and it is contracted by handling infected poultry; virtually all cases have been contracted this way.

Concerns several weeks ago among Egyptian experts that a mutated strain of the virus with 'reduced susceptibility' to the Tamiflu vaccine had emerged, proved to be unfounded.

To date the virus has killed in the region of 168 people and millions of birds, either by infecting them or causing them to be culled.