Egyptian Chronicles: Follow Up : H1N1 in Egypt

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Follow Up : H1N1 in Egypt

The ministry of health has announced the discovery of 7 new infection cases yesterday in Egypt and thus our infection toll has reached to 509.

401 cases have recovered , 1 is dead and the rest are still in the hospitals in a good condition “according to the ministry”

6 cases from the 7 are Egyptians , 3 of them came from Saudi Arabia and 3 are connected to previous H1N1 Positive. The remaining patient is from Saudi Arabia

I know that I am not keeping up with the H1N1 in Egypt as I used too but I am trying to catch up the news.

Yesterday the ministry of education said that it won’t delay the school year because of the swine flue. This year schools will start on the next 26 of September 2009. The ministry says and assures that it is ready for emergency plans in case of outbreak. Of course in case of outbreak in certain school the ministry was clear that it will close it immediately , where as if there is a limited outbreak in a single class or several classes it will be from the jurisdiction of the governors in the governorate to close or not based on the reports from the local educational and health directorates ; of course the question here : will the governors read those reports ???

From another side there is a daily scene of anger in the Cairo airport for those who are not allowed to travel for Omra under the age of 25 years old and over 65 years old.

From couple of days Egypt announced its first H1N1 infection , TV actress Nihal Anber , who is known for supporting roles in TV. Nihal was infected by her son who returned from Beirut , he is musician and rap singer. Both of them were aware of their cases and went immediately by themselves to the fever hospital in Cairo.

This light news of the previous days made the headlines despite there are other news that should be highlighted more. By the way I like Nihal but I think highlighting the fact that the ministry of health has discovered last Sunday the 16th 15 cases in 4 different governorates with no connection to any previous positive case at all is more alarming .

Those governorates are Alexandria, Giza, Damietta and Bahaira. Already the Swine flu appeared in Port Said, Sharkia,Sharm El-Sheikh and Cairo