# 1415
While Egypt has seen at least 50 human cases of Avian flu, and 22 fatalities, we actually get very little day-to-day news about the bird flu situation in that nation.
Their official Egyptian Health Ministry site has often gone months without being updated, despite their logo that proclaims "All you need to know about bird flu".
The state of freedom of the press in Egypt has declined in recent years, as well. In 2002, Egypt was ranked 101st (tied with Azerbaijan) by Reporters Without Borders in their ranking of press freedoms in the world.
By 2008, Egypt had dropped to #146 (out of 173).
Newshounds on the flu forums scour the Arabic press for news articles about avian influenza, but they rarely appear, and the translation tools from the Arabic often make them difficult to interpret.
One can't really accuse Egypt of hiding their bird flu problems, since they make routine filings with the OIE (World Organisation for Animal Health), and when human cases have surfaced, with the WHO.
They just don't go out of their way to talk about it publicly.
The most recent report to the OIE was filed in July of 2008, and it listed more than 1,000 outbreaks since 2006.
OIE Ref: 7012, Report Date: 07/07/2008, Country: Egypt
Unlike Indonesia, which hasn't filed an OIE report since September of 2006, Egypt has filed the requisite OIE reports over the past 2 years. The last report, in July, declared that the H5N1 virus was endemic in that nation.
Therefore, the headline in the article below, which appeared in the Arabic language paper Almasry-Alyoum shouldn't come as a surprise.
But this is one of the most detailed articles I've seen in the Arabic press.
Readers are told that a pandemic remains a serious concern, and that Egypt has an (undeclared) pandemic plan in place.
They are also advised that buying frozen chickens, slaughtered under government supervision, was far safer than slaughtering live birds.
The syntax is a bit clumsy (one of the limitations of machine translations), but this article is fairly easy to read. Since the link takes you to the Arabic version, I've translated and posted the entire article.
A hat tip to Florida1 of Flutrackers for the link.
Egypt announces «avian flu» endemic disease
And develop a plan «undeclared» to confront a pandemic
Mitwalli wrote Hisham Salem, facilitated 10-24-2008
Revealed the Food and Agriculture Organization «FAO» that Egypt informed the WHO of the animal that bird flu has become endemic diseases, and cause injuries as «semi-regular» throughout the year.
It also revealed the Ministry of Health, during the «avian flu which ended its meetings in Cairo yesterday - that Egypt has a plan« undeclared »anticipation of the spread of the disease is endemic.
The World Organization warned Egyptians to buy live birds or dealing with waste or traffic near the shops or markets that sell them.
The Dr. Ihab Egyptian animal control expert b «FAO», during the conference organized by the U.S. State Department, Voice of America, in Cairo said Egypt's declaration that the disease has become endemic does not mean it to the disaster, pointing out that the current situation is much better than Was during 2006.
Masri said: «difficult in light of the spread of the disease in about 25 governorates of the Egypt, and a considerable amount of population density, the announcement of a specific date for the eventual eradication of the disease».
He ruled out that the Egyptian influence on the global economic crisis grants for Egypt to cope with bird flu, he said, adding that the U.S. is the largest funder of projects to combat the disease, and participates in two projects, worth 12 million the first countries in three years and the second worth 2.5 million dollars.
He said: «that both Germany and Spain are involved in similar programs, stressing that none of these countries did not refer to a possible halt in aid.
The FAO are in Egypt to assist the Egyptian government and projects implemented by the cooperation with other external actors are «at the request of the government», stressing that these projects did not face any obstacles government.
Said Dr. Abdel Rahman Shahin, spokesman of the Ministry of Health: «Egypt and undeclared plan was developed to counter the possibility of the spread of the disease into a pandemic», pointing out that the plan exists at the center of crisis management, and I have every copy of the governor.
The Shaheen «detailed plan, and the precise details and procedures that may be taken in case of the disease turning into a pandemic, such as the names of doctors and health units and their dates and their replacements will be responsible for communications and electricity, and stocks of vaccines and how they will be, and other details» .
The risk of disease «still exist», did not rule out a global catastrophe in case the virus mutates to the disease.
He pointed out that another human case of HIV was 15 last April and since then there have been no injuries, adding «that the incidence of human infection of about 50 have recovered 22 cases, with a mortality of 44% of infected cases, while the average mortality rate Global human bird flu had reached 63%.
He is currently preparing a new vaccine in collaboration with France to protect the birds from the disease.
The Ministry of Agriculture emergency consultant Joseph Anneli America, to control the bird flu in Egypt are facing the «major problem», is that 30% of the daily production of poultry to be slaughtered in the massacres especially poultry, while 70% are slaughtered outside the massacres, or have shops Live poultry.
He attributed Hosni expert Dr. Fred FAO earlier, the failure to inform farmers on the incidence of the disease, to the absence of a clear policy to compensate for economic losses that could be hit by the discovery of these cases.
The poultry income is about 25% of the Egyptian families», pointing out that 27% of the Egyptian families raise poultry, including about 85% in rural areas and the rest in the cities.
He said that bird flu «man-made catastrophe», Fmwkd that preventive action can «eradicating disease», but that «does not happen».
He called Dr. Ibrahim el, spokesman of WHO in Egypt, people ate frozen birds slaughtered under the supervision of health authorities adopted, they are free of bird flu.
