Seven people were admitted yesterday to fever hospitals in Menya and Menoufia with bird flu symptoms. Meanwhile, Kafr Shukr criminal court in Qalyubia sentenced a farmer to one full year in jail and fined him LE 100,000 for smuggling infected chickens from his farm and putting them on the markets. In Menya, Dr. Mohamed Ayman Ragab, Under Secretary of the Ministry of Health in the governorate, said 4 cases were admitted to fever hospitals in Beni Mazar, Maghagha and Mallawi.
In Menoufia, Dr. Hisham Atta, Deputy Minister of Health, declared that Abdel Azim Ramadan Aboul Seoud, a 57-year-old worker from Denshway (El-Shuhadà province) and 14-year-old Manar Mohammed Naguib Mokhtar were admitted to Shebin El-Kom fever hospital, while 1-year-old Subhi Abdel Hadi was admitted to Sadr Shebin El-Kom fever hospital. Blood samples were taken and sent to the central laboratories. In Qalyubia, a campaign of the Directorate of Veterinary Medicine had taken samples from the farm of El-Sebai Ibrahim Ismail in the village of Estebet. It emerged that 30,000 chicks and 3,000 chickens there were infected with bird flu, and the directorate decided to seal the farm until the birds were culled on the following day. The farmer, though, smuggled all those birds and sold them on the market. He was arrested, brought to an urgent trial, sentenced to one year in jail and fined LE 100,000.
For his part, Major General Abdel Salam Mahgoub, Minister of Local Development, has said 491 farms and 5,112 shops have been shut down, 541 cars loaded with birds have been confiscated, 19,845 nests have been removed, 746,000 birds have been culled, and some 1.4 million birds have been immunized against bird flu. He also affirmed that coordination was underway among concerned ministries to set up four slaughterhouses in the governorates of Dakahlia, Sharkia, Gharbia and Qalyubia.