Egypt Reports 10th Case of Swine Flu

Egypt reports two more swine flu cases

CAIRO (AFP)— Two more cases of swine flu were reported in Egypt on Wednesday, a day after five Americans tested positive for the disease in a Cairo campus residence, health ministry officials said.

One case was reported in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria and the other in Cairo, ministry spokesman Mohammed Salam said. Both patients were taken to hospital for treatment.

Deputy health minister Nasser el-Sayyed told local television that both patients were Egyptians who had recently come from the United States.

The health ministry said on Tuesday it would extend a quarantine on an American University of Cairo residence in the upscale neighbourhood of Zamalek after five more residents were found to have been infected with the A(H1N1) virus.

The campus was first locked down on Monday after two students tested positive for the virus. The latest cases bring to 10 the number of swine flu infections in Egypt, the most populous Arab country.

On June 2, a 12-year-old girl who arrived from the United States became the first confirmed case of swine flu in Egypt and in Africa.

Egypt had responded to the outbreak of the swine flu in other countries by undertaking a cull of the country's estimated 250,000 pigs.

Egypt is already battling the H5N1 strain of bird flu, which has killed 27 people since it was first reported in 2006.

The authorities have stepped up checks of travellers at airports, quarantining suspected cases in makeshift centres.

Swine flu has now spread to 73 countries with 26,563 people known to have been infected and 140 to have died since the disease was uncovered in April, the World Health Organisation said on Tuesday.

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