Eight suspected cases of bird flu have been discovered in Monufiya this week, the patients have been transferred to the local hospitals, said Reda Aish, director of the Preventive Medicine Department, affiliated with Monufiya Health Directorate, on Tuesday.
He added that blood samples have been sent to laboratories in Cairo for analysis.
According to Aish, the number of bird flu patients started to decrease, due to warm weather which causes the H5N1 virus to be inactive.
In Damietta, a 63-year old man with symptoms of bird flu was received in the local hospital on Tuesday. A sample of the patient's blood has also been sent to Cairo for analysis, according to general director of Damietta Hospital Gamal al-Deeb.
Last month, a young man died of bird flu in Fayoum, raising the total number of victims in Egypt this year to 14.
Al-Arabiya news website quoted Local Development Minister Adel Labib on 11 March 2015 as saying that the total bird flu death toll in Egypt, since the start of the winter season amounted to 33 victims.
The largest amount of victims was in Sharqiya with 10 deaths, followed by Assiut with 7 victims, according to Labib.
The spread of the H5N1 virus is facilitaed by the large number of unlicensed poultry farms, outside of the scope of supervision by the Ministry of Agriculture, in addition to the lack of awareness among people who breed birds in their houses.
The death rate from bird flu is 37.4 percent in Egypt, compared to 55 percent on the international level, particularly in China.
According to the State Information Service, around two million people working in the poultry industry and eight million of their relatives have been affected since the emergence of bird flu in Egypt.
