Egypt extends dorm lockdown after H1N1 spreads

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt extended a quarantine of 234 people inside a dormitory at the American University in Cairo on Tuesday, ordering them isolated for a week after five more residents tested positive for the H1N1 flu, the university said.

All those infected with the virus were U.S. citizens living in the university's multi-storey Nile island dormitory, now guarded by police wearing protective masks.

"Tests for the H1N1 flu taken from residents of the American University in Cairo dormitory have resulted in five additional confirmed cases," the university said in a letter sent to faculty members, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters.

"On the basis of the new cases, the quarantine for the dormitory has been extended until June 15th," the letter said.

Egypt ordered a 24-hour quarantine of the dormitory, which houses mainly foreign students and faculty, on Monday after two students who recently arrived from the United States tested positive for the virus after falling ill.

The university said none of the group of five new cases -- four students and a staff member -- had exhibited any flu symptoms. They were removed from the dormitory and are being treated in hospital.

Egypt, hard hit by the more deadly H5N1 bird flu virus, detected its first H1N1 case last week in a 12-year-old American girl who arrived for a holiday in the most populous Arab country.

The H1N1 virus has now been diagnosed in more than 21,000 people worldwide, and has killed at least 125, mostly in Mexico, according to the World Health Organization.

Egypt, whose poultry industry was decimated by the arrival of bird flu in early 2006, fears another flu virus could spread quickly in a country where most of the roughly 76 million people live in the densely packed Nile Valley, many in crowded slums.

Egypt had stepped up surveillance measures at the airport to try to prevent the arrival of the disease, including by installing thermal monitors that helped detect and swiftly isolate the country's first H1N1 case.

Egypt has reported 29 human cases of bird flu this year including a toddler who tested positive on Sunday -- nearly four times the number reported in 2008.

(Writing by Cynthia Johnston; Editing by Janet Lawrence)