Mar 28, 2007 (CIDRAP News) – China announced today that a 16-year-old boy died of H5N1 avian influenza, and yesterday Egypt reported that a 46-year-old woman had tested positive for the disease, according to news services.
Officials in China said the boy is from Bengbu in eastern Anhui province, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported. China's health ministry told Xinhua, the state news agency, that the boy got sick Mar 17 and was hospitalized the following day and that surgical treatment was unsuccessful, the AFP report said. If the boy's case is confirmed by the WHO, he will be listed as China's 24th case-patient and 15th fatality.
Media reports have not said if the boy had contact with infected birds. Local health authorities told AFP that no bird outbreaks have been reported in the boy's town and that his close contacts have so far shown no symptoms of the disease, AFP reported.
In Egypt, the health ministry reported that the 46-year-old woman who tested positive for H5N1 is from the northern Nile delta city of Damnhour, about 80 miles north of Cairo, the Associated Press (AP) reported. Few details were available about her illness, though health officials said the woman and other recent H5N1 patients contracted the virus from domestic birds, the AP report said.
If the WHO confirms the woman's case, she will be listed at Egypt's 30th case-patient. Her case is the country's 12th reported this year.
Also today, the WHO confirmed two other Egyptian cases that were reported earlier yesterday, involving a 6-year-old girl and a 5-year-old boy. Both were hospitalized on Mar 25, had contact with infected birds, and remain in stable condition, according to the WHO report.
The 6-year-old girl is from the southern province of Qena, and the 5-year-old boy is from Menia province in central Egypt.
In Indonesia, the Jakarta Post reported today that a 40-year-old man who had tested positive for H5N1 died in Surabaya, capital of East Java. Yesterday an AFP story had listed the Surabaya patient as a 39-year-old.
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