Mother of Sixth Qinghai H5N1 Fatality in Egypt is Hospitalized
Recombinomics Commentary
February 7, 2007
A teenage girl became the fifth Egyptian to die of bird flu in six weeks, a health official said yesterday, amid fears of a global surge in infections by the deadly virus. Nour Nadi, a 17-year-old from the impoverished oasis province of Fayyum, 100 kilometers south of the capital, died Monday of the H5N1 strain of avian influenza.
Nadi’s mother, Marzouqa Ramadan, who may have caught the virus from her daughter, was said to have been admitted to a respiratory illnesses hospital in the Al-Abbasiya district of Cairo, on the same day, where she is being examined by doctors.
The above translation describes the hospitalization of the mother of the most recent confirmed H5N1 case in Egypt. The recent case (17F) was the sixth fatal case this season in Egypt. If the mother is positive for H5N1, then five of the seven cases in Egypt will be from clusters. Sequences of H5N1 from the first three cases have M230I, which is also likely in the third Gharbiya cluster member. This change, which is adjacent to the receptor binding domain, is also in seasonal flu (H1N1, H3N2, influenza B). It has also been found in H5N1 from birds in Egypt, although it is encoded with sequences found in H5N1 as well as H7N3.
More information on the sequences of the recent confirmed cases as well as testing of her hospitalized mother would be useful.
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