# 5216
Although the UK has grabbed most of the headlines this flu season, elevated levels of influenza are being reported in other parts of the world, including Egypt.
Today, IRIN has a background piece on bird flu versus swine flu in Egypt that states the obvious (that bird flu is the deadlier of the two viruses), but also gives us some feel for the impact of this year’s flu season as well.
IRIN (Integrated Regional Information Networks), was founded in 1995 and is part of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
EGYPT: Avian flu deadlier than swine flu
Photo: Amr Emam/IRIN
A schoolboy is inoculated against H1N1 influenza in Cairo (file photo)
CAIRO, 10 January 2011 (IRIN) - When Ibrahim Mohamed’s body temperature rose slightly, his father immediately took him to hospital to make sure the 10-year-old did not have the H1N1 virus, otherwise known as swine flu.
Doctors tried to convince Mohamed’s father that the rise in the boy’s temperature did not necessarily mean he had swine flu, but the father was adamant the boy be tested.
Mohammed was diagnosed negative, though the country’s hospitals have been on high alert after five more people died in the governorates of Gharbia, Port Said, Ismaillia, and Monofiya because of the virus.
“Dozens of suspected cases arrive at the hospitals every day,” said Nassr Al-Sayed, assistant minister of health for preventive medicine. “We are raising our alert levels in case an outbreak happens,” he told IRIN.
The Health Ministry announced on 4 January that it had detected 838 new confirmed H1N1 cases across the nation in December. It said it had detected 2,171 cases since October 2010 and 24 people had died.
"But infection rates are still within normal limits compared with infections during the last winter season," said ministry spokesman Abdelrahman Shahin.
This article paints a picture of a busy, but not as yet alarmingly so, flu season in Egypt. There are obviously a large number of non-influenza respiratory viruses circulating in the region as well.
To date, 119 cases of H5N1 `bird flu’ have been reported in Egypt resulting in 40 deaths since 2006.
While human infection with H5N1 remains extremely rare, bird flu has a fatality rate many times higher than regular influenza. Hence the ongoing concern over the virus.
Egypt and Indonesia are the two countries reporting the highest number of human H5N1 infections (Egypt=29, Indonesia=9) over the past year.