CAIRO - Egypt confirmed Friday it had detected the first cases of bird flu in the country, saying they involved the highly pathogenic form of the H5N1 virus, a government spokesman announced.
Magdi Radi said six cases had been detected in the greater Cairo area and one in the southern governorate of Minya, 250 kilometres (155 miles) south of the capital.
"The first positive laboratory tests for the seven cases came in at around 3:00 am (0100 GMT) on Friday," he said on state television.
He added that officials received "the first positive analysis of samples infected with the H5N1 virus" on Thursday, but only confirmed them later.
"The seven cases were the first registered in Egypt and all involved poultry raised at homes and not on farms," Radi said.
He also stressed that "it was also confirmed that there were no cases of infections among the citizens."
The appearance of the virus in Egypt is the second in Africa after cases were discovered in Nigeria.
On Thursday, officials in Egypt's southern governorate of Qena began testing chickens for avian flu after the mysterious deaths of some 130 of them in one village.
The death of the birds at a number of homes in Ezzab al-Masri prompted residents to alert officials, fearing the outbreak of a disease.
There was no report Friday on the outcome of those tests.
Qena is the governorate in which the popular tourist areas of Luxor and Thebes are located.
Egypt had already tightened controls at ports of entry and set up observation posts along its borders and waters to collect samples on migratory birds.
The authorities have also called off the bird-hunting season in response to the global bird flu scare and banned imports of live birds and poultry products.
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