#12,452
It's been an unusually quiet winter for avian flu reports out of Egypt, with only two human infections reported by the WHO in 2017. Last year, Egypt reported 10 cases, while the year before (2015), that number soared to 136 cases and 39 deaths (see WHO Chart below).
The cause for this abrupt drop off in cases after Egypt's largest H5N1 epidemic isn't known.
We do know that the Egyptian MOH has gone largely silent on the topic of avian flu, and very rarely publicly acknowledges cases, even when they are reported to the WHO.
What little reporting we do get is rarely confirmed by government officials (see More Bird Flu Murmurs From Egypt).Reporters without Borders 2017 World Press Freedom Index ranks Egypt as 161st out of 180 countries - dropping two notches since last year - and so we tend to get very little independent reporting of cases.
Today the FAO has posted a notice of a human H5N1 case in Cairo, albeit with almost no details, other than the location and observation date (5/9/17).
The Egyptian MOH website, not surprisingly, has nothing on this case. Hopefully we'll get more details from a WHO update soon.
