Via Reuters: Seventh Egyptian dies of bird flu. Excerpt:
An Egyptian woman died of bird flu on Monday, bringing the total number of human deaths in Egypt to seven, the state news agency MENA said.
The victim was a woman from the Nile Delta town of Samanoud who had slaughtered and handled domestic poultry, it said. It was the first human death in Egypt from the virus since May.
The agency had earlier identified the woman as 39-year-old Hanan Aboul Magd, who was admitted to hospital with a high temperature and respiratory trouble on Oct. 4.
She moved to a specialist hospital in Cairo on Oct. 12 and was receiving Tamiflu, the standard treatment for the deadly virus, MENA said.
It said people with whom she was in contact have tested negative for the H5N1 virus, which first appeared in Egypt in February and caused great damage to the poultry industry.
I've been offline almost all morning, but NewsNow shows this story has spread rapidly. Perhaps some other report discusses the unusual length of time of this case. Most human H5N1 cases seem to resolve themselves in a week or two. This poor woman had to fight for almost a month.
Update: Here is the CIDRAP report on the case.
