CAIRO: Number of confirmed positive cases of H1N1 flu in Egypt increased to 112 after the Ministry of Health announced four new cases late Thursday.
According to the Ministry’s Official Media Spokesperson, Abdel Rahman Shahin, among the 112 cases, 93 have totally recovered, and the remaining 19 are in good condition receiving proper treatment in Egyptian hospitals.
The new cases are of a 20-year-old British female employer who came to Sharm Al-Sheikh with her husband on July 15; two Egyptian sisters, six and nine years old, who both came to Cairo from Saudi Arabia on July 15; and the fourth case was that of a 54-year-old British female who came with her family from England to Luxor on July 15, according to Shahin.
Shahin said that the Ministry of health has also examined some 38 other suspected cases of H1N1 along with 17 suspected cases of bird flu on Thursday which all came out negative.
On the other hand, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that H1N1 is “spreading widely in an unprecedented way.
“At this point, further spread of the pandemic, within affected countries and to new countries, is considered inevitable, stated the WHO’s statement released on Thursday.
WHO further added that due to the wide and quick spread of the disease among enormous countries, it became impossible for the organization to keep track and update the number of infected cases worldwide.
“However, as part of continued efforts to document the global spread of the H1N1 pandemic, regular updates will be provided describing the situation in the newly affected countries. WHO will continue to request that these countries report the first confirmed cases and, as far as feasible, provide weekly aggregated case numbers and descriptive epidemiology of the early cases, WHO said.
“As for countries already experiencing community-wide transmission, they are no longer to submit regular reports of individual laboratory-confirmed cases to WHO, the statement added.
According to the British Times and The Guardian newspapers, the British government announced that the number of deaths from H1N1 flu could increase to 65,000 this year, according to a scientific research results.
In Britain, the number of H1N1 deaths increased to 29 from 17 last Monday, while the number of infected cases reached 652, 53 of which are in critical condition and have been placed in intensive care units.
British medical authorities have also reported that some 55,000 patients have experienced flu like symptoms in Britain last week.
