Egypt reports two more swine flu cases

Two more cases of swine flu were reported in Egypt Wednesday, a day after five Americans tested positive for the disease in a Cairo campus residence and thus bringing the total number of infected to 10, health ministry officials said.

One case was reported in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria and the other in Cairo, ministry spokesman Mohammed Salam said. Both patients were taken to hospital for treatment.

Deputy health minister Nasser el-Sayyed told local television that both patients were Egyptians who had recently come from the United States.

The health ministry said on Tuesday it would extend a quarantine on an American University of Cairo residence in the upscale neighborhood of Zamalek after five more residents were found to have been infected with the (H1N1) virus.

The campus was first locked down on Monday after two students tested positive for the virus. The latest cases bring to 10 the number of swine flu infections in Egypt, the most populous Arab country.

On June 2, a 12-year-old girl who arrived from the United States became the first confirmed case of swine flu in Egypt and in Africa.

Egypt had responded to the outbreak of the swine flu in other countries by undertaking a cull of the country's estimated 250,000 pigs.

Egypt is already battling the H5N1 strain of bird flu, which has killed 27 people since it was first reported in 2006.

The authorities have stepped up checks of travellers at airports, quarantining suspected cases in makeshift centers.

In a televised conference Tuesday in which the Egyptian authorities were criticized for allowing infected U.S. travelers into the country, ministry spokesmen said there was no way of telling who is infected unless the person has a fever upon arrival.

Travelers arriving in Egypt are photographed, their body temperature scanned and addresses taken in case there is a need to follow up with them.

Egypt's government came under criticism from international animal rights groups for its decision to slaughter the nation's 300,000 pigs long before there were any cases in the country.

Swine flu has now spread to 73 countries with 26,563 people known to have been infected and 140 to have died since the disease was uncovered in April, the World Health Organisation said on Tuesday.

Saudi

Meanwhile, a Saudi student diagnosed with swine flu, the second case of the disease in the kingdom, was discharged from hospital after treatment, the health ministry said on Wednesday.

The man had flown from Washington in the United States to Jeddah and then on to Dammam in the Eastern Province on Sunday, the official SPA news agency said.

It quoted the health ministry as saying the man was released from hospital in Dammam on Wednesday "in a good state of health."

The ministry also said 22 people who had been in contact with the man after his arrival in Saudi Arabia had been given tests which proved negative.

It was the country's second case of infection by the A(H1N1) virus. The first was reported last Wednesday, a Filipina nurse who tested positive several days after returning to Saudi Arabia from holiday.