The US is to grant Egypt financial aid to combat bird flu. Reem Leila attends the signing ceremony The US will provide Egypt with $24 million to combat the deadly bird flu virus. On Sunday, Minister for International Cooperation Fayza Abul-Naga hosted a signing ceremony attended by Minister of Health and Population (MOHP) Hatem El-Gabali, Minister of State for Environmental Affairs Maged George, Saad Nassar, a representative of the minister of agriculture and land reclamation, and US Ambassador to Egypt Francis Ricciardone, all of whom signed the memorandum. The aid is being given through the US Agency for International Development (USAID) in a grant and project support funds over the next three years -- $8 million a year. Abul-Naga told a press conference after the signing that the $95.6 million aid that Egypt has received from the international community so far covers only a quarter of what it actually needs, which is estimated at $350 million to fight the potentially fatal H5N1 virus that has devastated its poultry industry and killed 15 persons from a total of 37 human cases. Since the virus was first reported in Egypt in mid-February 2006, the government has been exerting every possible effort to contain it, Abul-Naga said, citing the formation of a national committee for combating bird flu headed by the health minister, and the opening of a unified bank account into which all international aid is deposited. According to El-Gabali, the MOHP's share of the grant is $2.5 million to be spent on buying necessary equipment for combating the virus. Several challenges are still facing Egypt in fighting H5N1, including home-raised poultry, since most families are still reluctant to vaccinate the birds they raise, El-Gabali said. As for farms, he said, the number of bird flu-infected farms have decreased from 900 to less than 10. El-Gabali is calling for increasing international assistance to Egypt. On human cases of Avian Flu, he said that until now the world had not found a vaccine to treat such cases. Members of the US organisation NMRU 3 have started to analyse human and bird samples from various areas in Qena governorate. During the press conference, El-Gabali said a new drug had been discovered which prevented four-year-old Dina Ali Taghyan from Abu Diyab village in Qena governorate from dying. Taghyan was admitted to hospital seven days after contracting the virus. Abdel-Rahman Shahin, official MOHP spokesman, said Taghyan entered the hospital suffering from pneumonia, from which she was not expected to survive, seeing how advanced the case had become. But Taghyan was treated with an antibiotic along with Tamiflu which is an anti-viral drug. "Tests on the drug are ongoing to see how efficient it is in curing advanced stages of human bird flu cases," added Shahin. MOHP has increased the number of rural tutors to 13,000 from 6,000 to increase people's awareness regarding the dangers of the deadly H5N1. "Around 1,200 veterinarians have been newly appointed to follow up on the status of household poultry and to ensure that they are being vaccinated," Shahin said. Ricciardone said the grant is an extension of the continued partnership and cooperation between Egypt and the US, noting that it comes in support of the Egyptian government's national anti-bird flu plan. He promised continued backing by other US bodies -- the US Naval Medical Research Unit 3 (NMRU 3), the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the US Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service -- of the Egyptian government's work to combat the disease. Most of those who have fallen ill in Egypt were reported to have had either direct or indirect contact with sick or dead household birds, primarily in northern Egypt where the weather is cooler than in the south. But in a sign of a change in how the disease may be occurring in Egypt, the H5N1 has the ability now to resist high temperature. "The deadly virus can now be expected under any circumstances," El-Gabali said. Bird flu caused extensive damage to the country's poultry industry and the economy as a whole after its arrival in Egypt, which has more confirmed bird flu cases among humans than any other country outside of Asia. Around six million households in Egypt depend on poultry as a main source of food and income and the government has said this makes it unlikely that the disease can be eradicated. The government still finds it hard to enforce restrictions on the movement and sale of live poultry.
