# 1439
Seeking to calm the waters a bit after 4 Egyptian deaths in a week rattled their citizens, health officials are saying there is no sign of a pandemic in that country.
This article is the first mention I've seen of possible Tamiflu resistance in these recent cases. As you may recall, a couple of Egyptian cases in late 2006 were also labeled as showing `moderate resistance' to Tamiflu. This was not mentioned in yesterday's WHO update on Egypt.
This from the IRIN news organization.
EGYPT: No bird flu pandemic despite recent deaths - health officials
DUBAI, 3 January 2008 (IRIN) - Four humans have died of bird flu in Egypt in the past week but health officials deny the country is gripped by an influenza pandemic.
“There is still no fear that the virus has transformed into an influenza pandemic,” John Jabbour, a medical consultant for emerging diseases at the World Health Organization (WHO) regional office for the Eastern Mediterranean, told IRIN.
Sixteen other suspected cases were admitted to hospital on 2 January, according to Amany Nakhla, the regional planning assistant for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) regional office, in Cairo.
According to media reports, the H5N1 strain has been detected among poultry in the Nile Delta, especially those reared in homesteads.
All four deaths in the past week were of women from the Nile Delta region and they brought to 19 the number of people who have died of the H5N1 strain of avian flu since avian flu was first detected in Egypt in 2006. Three of the four women were infected by domestic birds in their homes. The fourth was a poultry seller.
The WHO has said some of those who died having contracted the H5N1 virus strain showed moderate resistance to Tamiflu, the antiviral drug.
Before their deaths the last reported case of a human death from bird flu was in June 2007. “Avian flu is a behavioural disease and as a long time has passed since it [last] appeared in the country, people went back to their previous habits of raising poultry inside their homes because it is the only source of income for many of them,” Jabbour said.
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