# 653
Despite claims of openness and transparency, often the official news we get from foreign countries comes to us pasteurized, homogenized, and sanitized for our protection.
For the past 5 days we've heard, almost daily, that the 15 year old bird flu patient from Cairo, Marina Mikhai, is recovering, and in stable condition. Her life, it has been claimed, is apparently in no danger. She is receiving treatment.
Yesterday, we learned a different story via the WHO; that she remains in critical condition.
Last night, it was widely reported on the flu forums that this young girl lost her fight with the virus, and has died. This report was posted by Dr. Henry Niman, and comes from a one paragraph notice in Al Ahram, a government controlled newspaper in Egypt.
Google-translated from Arabic:
The death of the 14th contracted avian flu
April 11, 2007
She died yesterday girl Marina Mikhail (15 years), following the presence of bird flu, raising the number of deaths the disease to 14 people. The girl had entered al-Sadr Abbassiya hospital last Thursday following a rise in the temperature following the sinking Batteur suspected in the presence of avian influenza.
It is now nearly 10 hours since that announcement, and thus far, none of the wire services have picked up on it. Nothing but silence out of Egypt.
Assuming that this article is correct, then it would seem that this news isn't being widely disseminated, otherwise Reuters, AFP, or the AP would have carried it by now.
When we go days without major bird flu stories, it is easy to convince ourselves that nothing is happening, that things are quieting down.
Sometimes, that's true.
But sometimes, it only means that the news isn't getting out.
UPDATE: 0500 Hrs EDT
Just under 12 hours after the entire flu community heard the news, it has finally made the wire services.
Egyptian girl dies of bird flu
Wed 11 Apr 2007 8:41:06 BST
CAIRO, April 11 (Reuters) - A 15-year-old Egyptian girl who tested positive for the H5N1 bird flu virus has died in hospital, bringing the number of deaths from the disease in Egypt to 14, the health ministry said on Wednesday.
A ministry statement said Marianna Kameel Mikhail, who was admitted to hospital in Cairo on Thursday, died of respiratory failure on Tuesday evening despite being treated with the antiviral Tamiflu and being placed on a respirator.
None of her family was found to have bird flu, it added.
"This case is the 14th death from 34 cases of bird flu infection since the disease appeared in Egypt in February 2006," the statement said.
Egypt has the highest number of confirmed human bird flu cases outside Asia.
