Bird Flu Blamed in Egypt Child's Death

[tekisui]

Source: LA Times

Reporting from Cairo -- Beyond smokestacks and whipped donkeys, past fish curled on dirty ice and sparrows skimming laundry hanging in alleys, the death of 6-year-old Ali Mohammed Ali brought mystery, health inspectors and truckloads of police to a poor Cairo neighborhood.

Ali, a first-grader and computer wizard from Shubra el Kheima, died last week in a hospital, his lungs full of fluid, a stent in his chest. Health officials say he had bird flu, but they can't pinpoint where he picked it up: The market, the school, on the rooftops with the pigeon keepers or on a recent trip to his grandfather's village in the Nile Delta?

Nobody knows. Homes and classrooms have been disinfected, neighborhood poultry has been confiscated and culled, and the man splitting chicken breasts with a machete next to the baker keeps watch for police in case he has to disappear in a hurry. There is alarm and nonchalance, talk of a health epidemic, grumbles of conspiracy.

"The Health Ministry came. They checked our flat, they took our blood. They tested everyone in this building for infection," said Ali's mother, Aleya Ismail. "But still they don't know how it got into my son. Where can I raise poultry here? Under the bed? How could this virus have found him?"

Egypt has had 65 cases of bird flu, including 26 deaths, since 2006 -- the highest national toll outside Asia, where the virus, designated as H5N1, was believed to have first appeared in humans in 1997.

more: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-egypt-bird-flu30-2009apr30,0,5512058.story