KEY POINTS:
CAIRO - A 37-year-old Egyptian woman tested positive for the H5N1 bird flu virus and European officials today debated whether they needed to take more action after an outbreak of the virus in British turkeys.
The World Health Organisation confirmed the woman had tested positive for the avian influenza virus, making her the 21st case in Egypt. She was being treated in a hospital.
Egypt has the highest-known cluster of human cases outside Asia, with 12 deaths out of the 21 infected cases since the virus first surfaced in Egyptian poultry a year ago.
The woman, who kept birds in her home, was admitted to the hospital on February 12 after coming into contact with infected poultry, officials said.
The H5N1 virus is on the move again after an apparent lull in recent months. Outbreaks in birds have caused concern in Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Turkey, Pakistan, Hungary and in Nigeria, which reported its first human death earlier this month.
It continues to kill people and poultry alike in Indonesia, as well. WHO says there have been 273 human cases worldwide and 166 deaths since 2003. More than 200 million birds have died or been slaughtered.
The virus is a threat mostly to birds and the poultry trade now, although health experts fear it could mutate into a form easily transmitted from one person to another, sparking a pandemic that could kill millions of people.
The European Commission was concerned over the outbreak earlier this month at a British turkey farm. British scientists said the strain of virus was virtually identical to one that killed birds in Hungary this year, and the British farm had commercial links with Hungary.
Britain and Hungary have been arguing over the likely source of contamination, which forced the destruction of tens of thousands of turkeys.
But a European Commission official said the incident provided no reason to alter European Union laws that aim to contain and control the disease.
"There is no evidence that our legislation is lacking in any way or that there are any gaps. We have nothing at this stage that would cause us to change the legislation," the official told reporters.
"But that's not to say that there hasn't been a failure in implementation (of EU law)," he added. "It's possible that fraud is a factor and the best legislation in the world cannot exclude that possibility."
Hungary said there was no evidence to show that poultry or poultry products from Hungary could have transmitted the H5N1 virus to Britain. But the EU official said it was possible vehicles, people or poultry could have carried the virus.
"It would appear to be a link based on movements of vehicles or poultry. But we don't know what vector it would be," the Commission official said.
Officials in Netherlands said they were fairly confident that wild birds did not spread the virus from Hungary to Britain.
Its agricultural ministry lifted an order to keep poultry indoors, safe from wild birds, saying that farmers could allow poultry outdoors again from Feb. 19.
"It can be said with relative certainty that the outbreak in England came about through indirect contact with infected companies in Hungary. The option that the outbreak was due to infected wild birds seems less likely," it said.
- REUTERS
