H5N1 Confirmed in Fayoum Egypt
Recombinomics Commentary 20:36
March 1, 2008
A 25-year-old Egyptian woman tested positive for bird flu on Saturday, the 45th confirmed human case in the Arab world's most populous country, state news agency MENA said.
The woman was suffering from a high fever, both her lungs were inflamed, and she was being kept on a respirator and under observation, Shaheen said.
The above comments describe the second confirmed H5N1 case in Egypt this week. Like the earlier case, this patient has also developed pneumonia. The recent case has pneumonia in both lungs and is on a respirator. This case is in Fayoum, which is adjacent to the location of the earlier case in Menya.
New cases in Egypt at this time of year are not unexpected, but the two most recent cases are more severe than infections in Egypt a year ago. More severe cases are not a surprise. Last season all cases with M230I were fatal. The recently released poultry sequences indicated M230I was still in circulation in Egypt, with and without V223I, the other receptor binding domain polymorphism in the Gharbiya cluster.
The recently released sequence data identifies an increase in the rate of H5N1 and increased genetic diversity and complexity, which includes non synonymous HA changes signaling vaccine escape.
The recent confirmed human cases follow H5N1 outbreaks in vaccinated flocks, raising additional concerns about the effectiveness of the current vaccine(s) in use.
Release of full sequences from the cases at the end of 2007 in Egypt would be useful.
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