A teenage girl has become the fifth Egyptian to die of bird flu in six weeks, a health official has said, according to AFP. Nour Nadi, a 17-year-old from the impoverished oasis province of Fayyum, 100 kilometres south of Cairo, died Monday of the H5N1 strain of avian influenza.
The World Health Organisation's representative John Jabbour said Tuesday the girl died of the normal strain of the virus rather than a new drug-resistant variety. "In the last case in Beni Sueif (province), it had turned back to the normal strain and we expect this one to be the same," said Jabbour about Nadi's death.
Nadi died not because her infection was drug-resistant, he added, but because she tried to hide her symptoms from discovery because of the growing stigma surrounding the disease," said Jabbour.
