A nine-year old boy died from complications related to H1N1 virus, also known as swine flu. The boy’s death on Thursday afternoon marked the first death of a school student from the virus. The victim, Mustafa Ahmed Ezzat from the Egyptian Language School in Helwan was brought to the doctor after he was diagnosed with the flu. He was injected with the anti-inflammatory drug Voltaren, and soon after his condition deteriorated rapidly, said the Ministry of Health in a press statement.
The boy, who was then suffering from a brain hemorrhage and vomiting, was rushed to the hospital in a coma, where he was admitted to the intensive care unit in a Cairo hospital, where he died soon after. A committee of internists, pediatricians and pharmacologists has been formed to investigate the reasons behind his death.
Despite this death, the current rate of infection is reassuring, said Youssri el-Gamal, minister of education.
Meanwhile, Deputy Minister of Education Abdel Fattah Gado announced that Cairo Governor Abdel Azeem Wazir has decided to close four classes in Cairo for 15 days after new instances of H1N1 were discovered. A class at the Modern Egypt 2000 School in Helwan has also been shutdown for 15 days after three cases of H1N1 were discovered.
The detected cases in Cairo include a second-year boy from the Saint Fatima School in Nasr City, a first-year boy from the Sadat Experimental School, a third-year girl from the Kolleyat el-Banat School in Zamalek and a secondary school boy from the Ibn Khaldoun School, said Gado.
The World Health Organization plans to donate 200 million doses of the H1N1 vaccine to developing countries. It also said that children should be given one dose of the vaccine instead of two, "due to the scarcity of the vaccine in some countries."
Translated from the Arabic Edition.
