A 30-year-old Egyptian woman has died of the highly pathogenic H5N1 bird flu, the country's first human victim.
The virus is also reported to have spread to birds in neighboring Israel.
Two human fatalities resulting from bird flu have already been reported in Iraq.
Elsewhere in the region, birds have been reported infected with the H5N1 strain in Iran, Israel and Kuwait.
The Egyptian government said the victim, Amal Mohammed Ismail, who maintained a domestic bird farm despite a ban on the practice since the arrival of bird flu in the country last month, died of a fever after she was hospitalized with flu-like symptoms.
She was first admitted to a hospital in Qaliubiya just north of Cairo and then moved on Wednesday to the fever hospital in
Abasiya, Cairo.
The Cairo-based US Naval Medical Research Unit confirmed it was a human case of H5N1.
Meanwhile, authorities in Israel were scrambling to contain the state's first outbreak after tests on dead fowl confirmed the lethal strain.
The Israeli authorities believe the virus was brought in by migratory birds making their spring passage from Africa to Europe.
However, four farm workers who had been admitted to hospital were declared free of the virus.
In November, Kuwait was the first country in the region to discover the H5N1 strain, which it detected in a flamingo.
Since then, Iran has reported finding the H5N1 strain in more than 100 wild swans.
