# 2125
If you base your perceptions on the news carried by the English Language media, you'd certainly believe that there has been little or no bird flu related activity in Egypt for months.
Fortunately, newshounds on the Internet continue to monitor the Arabic Language news services, and occasionally stories do appear there about Egypt's battle against the H5N1 virus.
It should be noted that searching for bird flu news items in languages like Arabic and Chinese are particularly difficult tasks, and require extraordinary patience and dedication.
Over the past month Florida1 over at Flutrackers has uncovered a number of stories that indicate things are not as quiet as we might otherwise believe.
A good example is this translation about the severe shortage of eggs, reportedly due to bird flu, in Egypt.
Supply of eggs down by 90% due to ongoing bird flu epidemic in poultry.
Major supplier unable to supply eggs to hospitals.
Date: Wednesday June 11 2008 12:21:00 Alepeshaer Nabil Al-Saif:
After nearly a quarter century of control of the business supplying chicken eggs to government bodies and private agencies in Egypt and the Middle East and the preparation of up to 100 million eggs in a single auction, the inability (Mamdouh Bakhit) famous "King of eggs" in Egypt and the Middle East to provide 45 million eggs To deliver them to hospitals in Ain Shams University in accordance with the supply contract which has monopolized without any competition for a quarter of a century because of bird flu epidemic that swept Egypt.
For the first time in his life depends on the supply of eggs king of whites University Hospitals, after failing to provide even if meagre quantities of eggs from the black market because of inadequate avian influenza.
Another story, again from last month, relating the culling of 25,000 chickens `infected with bird flu'.
Egypt executes 25 thousand chickens infected with bird flu
6/6/2008
عدمت مصر 25 ألف دجاجة أثبتت الفحوصات الطبية إصابتها بمرض أنفلونزا الطيور فى مزرعة لتربية الدواجن بمحافظة الجيزة شمال البلاد.
Egypt executed 25 thousand chickens medical tests proved a severe bird flu in farm poultry Giza Governorate north of the country.
وقامت لجنة مشتركة من وزارة الزراعة والطب البيطرى ومباحث التموين والوحدة المحلية بإعدام هذا العدد من الدواجن بناء على طلب مديرية الطب البيطرى بالجيزة، التى أكدت إصابة هذه الدواجن بأنفلونزا الطيور، و قامت اللجنة بتطهير المزرعة والعنابر.
The joint committee from the Ministry of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine and Investigation Unit of Supply and local execution of this number of poultry at the request of the Directorate of Veterinary Medicine in Giza, which confirmed the infection of poultry with bird flu, and the Commission cleared the farm and wards.
There are others, many of them cryptic and difficult to decipher, even after translation. Individually, they may seem insignificant, but when taken together they paint a picture of a nation struggling to control the virus.
Yesterday, the OIE published the 7th report on highly pathogenic H5N1 in Egypt, and sure enough, they list at least 9 new outbreaks since May of this year. (Hat tip Ironorehopper on Flutrackers)
In a nation where the H5N1 virus was not already endemic, reporting these quantities of outbreaks would be considered `news'.
But of course, the virus is well entrenched in Egypt, and so outbreaks are no longer newsworthy. Just as outbreaks in Indonesia and Bangladesh no longer garner headlines.
A reminder that while things may seem quiet, that the bird flu virus has not gone away.
