CAIRO: The Ministry of Health reported Monday the death of a fourth bird flu case in less than a week, bringing the total of bird flu deaths in Egypt to 19 and the number of Egyptian cases overall to 43. Hanem Atwa Ibrahim, 50, from Damietta north of Cairo, died late on Monday in a hospital in the capital, Al-Ahram daily reported.Atwa was admitted to the hospital on Dec. 24 and had been in critical condition ever since.According to local press reports, five other patients suspected of carrying the virus are held in the custody of three different hospitals in Menufiya.Minister of Health Hatem Al-Gabaly told the press that people's negligence is the main reason behind the spread of the virus. He blames the public for not following the preventive measures to fight it.Earlier this week three other deaths were reported.Menufiya resident Fardous Mohamed Hadad, 36, died Monday Dec. 31 in the hospital where she was admitted two days earlier with a high fever and difficulty breathing, ministry spokesman Abdel Rahman Shahin said in a statement carried by the official Mena news agency. On Sunday Dec. 26, Fatma Fathi Mohammed, 25, from the Nile Delta province of Daqahliya died of the disease just days after the death of Ola Yunes Ali.The World Health Organization (WHO) said earlier this year that countries around the world had improved in their resistance to bird flu, but the situation remains critical in Egypt and Indonesia where the risk of the H5N1 virus mutating into a major human threat remains high.Egypt's location on major bird migration routes and the widespread practice of keeping domestic fowl near living quarters have led to its being the hardest-hit country outside Asia.International health experts have been dispatched to Pakistan to help investigate the cause of South Asia's first human bird flu cases and determine if the virus could have been transmitted from person to person, according to a WHO official.
