Egyptian Chronicles: Follow Up : H1N1, H1N5 And More

Ok let’s start with H1N5 , it has been a time since the ministry of health has announced a new H1N5 case in Egypt ; all what we hear now is the rapidly increasing infection rate of H1N1.

The ministry of health has announced the 82nd case of H5N1 infection in Egypt. Rania Ahmed Mustafa from Kafr El-Sheikh governorate in North Delta began to show the symptoms on the 24th of July and was admitted to Kafr El-Sheikh fever hospital on the 25th. She was given Tamflu as soon as the doctor suspected that she was infected by H5N1. Her condition according the ministry’s statement is stable and sooner she will be transferred to Cairo to resume her recovery.

Moving to H1N1 unproudly the ministry of health announced that we reached to 200 H1N1 infection cases by yesterday. 142 cases have recovered , one has passed away and the rest 57 are being treated.

Now we leave H1N1 and its older sister H1N5 and move to the health catastrophe in Qalulibiya governorate. There is an outbreak for typhoid fever in one of the villages there. 84 typhoid cases were recorded in one of the villages there as a result of water pollution. Arab contractors company is being accused of this catastrophe and the governor has fined it in a historical decision if I may say. Of course the company has to fire back accusing the villagers of bringing typhoid to themselves according to the following :

The village has not sewage system installed by the government nor it has direct access to water. The water source in the village in underground water. The villagers have decided to install their sewage system which of course was primitive sewage system. The sewers were leaked to the underground water and thus the village’s water was polluted.

Ok even if this was true , it won’t be the mistake of the villagers because it will be the mistake of the government that left a village with no direct access to water and sewage all those years.

What is fearful in El-Barada village is that what happened there may happen in other villages with or without big companies fooling around with environment. There are hundreds El-Barada villages in Egypt with no access to water or sanitation!!!

We leave Delta and move to Upper Egypt to Luxor where last week villagers in some village were poisoned because of the lead in the bread they were eating , yes you read right lead poisoning because of the bread or rather the wheat given by the government to the bakeries in the villages !!

The government imports spoiled wheat and in the last couple of months there were huge debates about spoiled wheat imported from Russia as far as I remember in the Parliament but whether we let it in or not.

Meanwhile the cabinet has started its summer vacation , the cabinet has moved to Marina resort :) . They will return on the beginning of the holy month of Ramadan which will be either 21st or 22nd of August !!