Egypt quarantines university dorm over swine flu

Egypt confirmed two more cases of the swine flu virus in foreign students at the American University in Cairo and quickly put the dormitory of 140 students under quarantine, health and university officials said on Monday.

Police wearing face masks stood guard at barriers outside the multi-story dormitory in the classy neighborhood of Zamalek, mainly home to foreign students from Western and other Arab countries, and no one was allowed in or out.

"There are two students who have confirmed positive H1N1 test results," American University of Cairo spokeswoman Rehab Saad said, adding that both infected students were American. "As a result, the dormitory has been quarantined for 24 hours."

She said a third student with fever had been hospitalized as a precaution. All the students living in the dormitory were being tested for the virus.

Dr. Abdulrahman Shahin, spokesman for Egypt's health ministry, said the cases were identified immediately after the two students both aged 23 returned to Cairo from Florida and New Jersey via New York city.

Egypt, already hard hit by the much more deadly H5N1 bird flu virus, detected its first H1N1 case last week in a 12-year-old American girl who arrived for holidays in Cairo. The case was the first in Africa.

There are two students who have confirmed positive H1N1 test results. As a result, the dormitory has been quarantined for 24 hours

Rehab Saad, AUC

Airport measures

Egypt, the most populous Arab country, began a controversial cull of the country's estimated 250,000 pigs after initial reports of swine flu outbreaks in other countries.

The World Health Organization said the drastic measure was not scientifically justified.

Egyptian media reported that more than 150,000 pigs have been culled so far, with many of them later buried in hazardous waste disposal sites.

The authorities have stepped up measures to check travelers at airports for the virus, quarantining suspected cases in makeshift centers.

The airborne H1N1 virus has now been diagnosed in more than 21,000 people worldwide and has killed at least 125, mostly in Mexico, according to WHO.

Egypt, whose poultry industry was decimated by bird flu in early 2006, fears another flu virus could spread quickly in a country where most of the 76 million people live in the densely packed Nile Valley, many in crowded slums.

But the American University students who tested positive for the virus were believed to have arrived in late May on two separate flights from the United States, casting doubt on whether Egypt's airport measures could detect all cases.

"I am not really sure whether there are other cases we have missed or not because these cases were detected... a couple days after they entered the country," said Hassan al-Bushra, regional adviser for communicable disease surveillance at WHO.

Egypt has reported 29 human cases of bird flu this year including a boy who tested positive on Sunday -- nearly four times the number reported in 2008.

I am not really sure whether there are other cases we have missed or not because these cases were detected... a couple days after they entered the country

Hassan al-Bushra, WHO