An Egyptian girl died from bird flu on Thursday, raising to three the country's human death toll from the lethal virus, the official MENA news agency reported. The latest death was a 16-year-old girl from a province north of Cairo, who was admitted to hospital on Wednesday.
"Iman Mohamed Abdel Gawad, a 16-year-old girl from Monoufiya, died after being infected by bird flu," MENA said.
According to Reuters, late Wednesday the health minister stated a 16-year-old girl from the same province had been rushed to hospital with bird flu after handling dead birds, taking to 11 the number of people the Egyptian government says have caught the virus.
Egypt is the ninth country to report laboratory-confirmed human cases in the current outbreak, which began in Vietnam in December 2003. Four of these countries reported their first human cases this year: Turkey, Iraq, Azerbaijan, and Egypt.
