Note: While the MOH has only announced 4 cases this year, FluTrackers has a fifth case reported by Ministry of Health of Beheira governorate, which would bring the total to 5.
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While we haven’ heard much about H5N1 in Egypt in recent months, we’ve continued to see FAO reports of outbreaks in Egyptian poultry, and so it isn’t terribly surprising that overnight the Egyptian MOH has issued the following (machine translated) statement on their 4th reported human H5N1 infection of the year.
Minister of Health: Injured bird flu .. and in stable condition
Dr. Adel Adawi, Minister of Health and Population injury a new case of bird flu to a baby girl at the age of 3 months from the Giza governorate, pointing out that it is the fourth case of injury this year.
The Minister of Health that the date of onset of the disease is due to on Monday 22/09/2014 where she was suffering from a case (fever - sore throat - cough - vomiting), where the girl's parents went to the outpatient clinic at the Hospital of the Abbasid released on 25/9 / in 2014, and he asked the people of the situation indicate exposure to dead birds, have been isolated little girl at the hospital on suspicion of bird flu, then was taken from the throat swab on the same day were sent the sample to the central laboratory of the Ministry of Health and Population and the girl began to take Tamiflu, as well as the work of the rays normal Sadr hailed the show a pneumonia Ayman, was the result of the sample positive for the disease were confirmed case experimentally in the central laboratory to be positive for the avian influenza virus (A / H5N1), and was the work of Ohotai issued to follow the situation where it was found that the situation is improving and the overall situation is stable.Source: Center for Media
Although H5N1 has taken a bit of a back seat to MERS-CoV, Ebola, and H7N9 it remains endemic in wild birds and poultry in both Asia and the Middle East, continues to evolve into new clades, and continues to pose a threat both to agricultural interests and (on occasion) to human health.
The most recent WHO Update: Influenza at the human-animal interface (H5N1), advises:
Overall public health risk assessment for avian influenza A(H5N1) viruses: Whenever influenza viruses are circulating in poultry, sporadic infections or small clusters of human cases are possible, especially in people exposed to infected poultry or contaminated environments. These influenza A(H5N1) viruses do not currently appear to transmit easily among people. As such, the risk of community-level spread of these viruses remains low.
That said, reserachers continue to watch H5N1, along with a growing cadre of recently emerged avian flu viruses (H7N9, H5N6, H10N8) for any signs that they are becoming better adapted to human physiology.
