CAIRO, Dec. 24 (Xinhua) -- Egypt detected three new human bird flu cases, all of whom came from a family in the Egyptian Delta governorate of Gharbiya, some 90 km north of Cairo, Cairo office of the World Health Organization (WHO) told Xinhua on Sunday.

    The WHO in Egypt said two of the three infected people had slaughtered the poultry after some ducks had become sick and died.

    However, a statement released by the Egyptian Health Ministry on Saturday said only two persons were tested positive for the deadly H5N1 virus strain after contacting infected domestic birds.

    They were admitted to Cairo's Abbasiya fever hospital. And medical teams were sent to the infected area to cull all birds around and examine people handling poultry.

    With the three new infections, Egypt has reported a total of 18human bird flu cases.

    Egypt found the first bird flu case in dead poultry on Feb. 17,2006 and then the virus spread to 20 of the country's 26 governorates.

    The populous Arab country reported first human bird flu case on March 18 of 2006. Since then, seven people have died of the fatal virus in the country.