The Egyptian Health Ministry said Sunday that a baby girl aged one year and a half has contracted bird flu virus, bringing the human cases of the fatal avian influenza to 66 in the populous country.

The girl, Ibrahim al-Manar who comes from Kafr El-Sheikh governorate north of Cairo, is now in critical condition despite taking the drug Tamiflu, the press center of the ministry said in a telephone interview.

Earlier on Friday, Hadiye Salah Ragab, a 25-year-old woman, who comes from a northern neighborhood of Cairo, was admitted to hospital after contracting the deadly virus.

Egypt is the most affected country by the deadly avian influenza outside Asia. It reported its first H5N1 virus in dead poultry in February 2006 and the first human case in March of the same year.

The death toll of the human cases of bird flu is 23 so far in Egypt.

According to the latest statistics of the World Health Organization on its website, some 418 people in 15 countries and regions have contracted the virus and 257 of them died of the disease.

(Xinhua News Agency April 20, 2009)