Egypt records 14th bird flu death

Cairo: A 15-year-old Egyptian girl has died in hospital of the H5N1 bird flu virus, bringing the number of deaths from the disease in Egypt to 14, a health ministry official said on Wednesday.

Marianna Kameel Mikhail, who was admitted to hospital in
Cairo on Thursday, died of respiratory failure on Tuesday
evening despite treatment with the antiviral Tamiflu and being
placed on a respirator, a ministry statement said.

Amr Kandeel, director of communicable diseases at the Ministry of Health, said the treatment failed because the girl did not enter hospital until a week to 10 days after the
symptoms started.

As in several other fatal cases in Egypt, the patient and her relatives denied she had had any recent contact with domestic poultry, Kandeel added.

Meanwhile, a three-year-old, Hajer Mohamed Awadallah, was taken to hospital in the southern town of Aswan on Thursday and has tested positive for the deadly virus, the Ministry of Health said.

Her condition was stated to be stable and an epidemiological study was said to be under way on all of her family.

Most of the deaths in Egypt have come about because the patients concealed their contacts with poultry, leading to delays in the start of Tamiflu treatment, health officials say.

Out of a total of 34 humans who have caught bird flu in Egypt, 14 have died and 19 have recovered.

The health ministry statement said none of Mikhail's family were found to have bird flu.