Egypt reports new human bird flu death

An Egyptian woman died of bird flu on Friday, bringing the death toll from the avian flu to 11, the official MENA news agency reported.

Warda Eid Ahmed, 27, died at a hospital in Cairo, Abdel-Rahman Shahin, spokesman for the Health and Population Ministry, was quoted as saying.

Ahmed, from a small village in the central governorate of Beni Suef, some 120 km south of Cairo, was admitted to the hospital on Jan. 13, suffering from pneumonitis, he added.

Ahmed became the 11th Egyptian who died of the deadly H5N1 virus, also the first human bird flu case in Egypt in 2007 and the 19th case since the outbreak of the epidemic.

Egypt found the first bird flu case in dead poultry on Feb. 17, 2006, and then the virus spread to 20 of the country's 26 governorates. The first human bird flu case was found in March.

Source: Xinhua