Egypt marks 13th bird flu death

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
An Egyptian woman died Friday of the H5N1 strain of bird flu, bringing the number of deaths in the country to 13, while a boy in the country's north tested positive for the disease, a World Health Organization official here said. Nadia Abdel Hafez, a 37-year-old housewife from the oasis town of Fayoum, had been admitted to a local clinic on Monday. After tests revealed the H5N1 virus, Abdel Hafez was transferred to a hospital in Cairo, some 70 kilometers (45 miles) to the north, where her condition was initially reported as stable. But she died in the early hours of Friday, WHO spokesman Ibrahim el-Kardani said. Meanwhile, a boy from the northern Nile Delta province of el-Sharqiya tested positive for the avian influenza strain, Egypt's 22nd case so far, el-Kardani said.