CAIRO, Feb. 25 (Xinhua) -- The Egyptian Ministry of Health confirmed Monday that a four-year-old girl was infected with bird flu virus in Egypt, bringing the number of human infection case to 44 in the populous Arab country.

    The latest case was detected in El Minya governorate, Upper Egypt, some 220 km south of the Egyptian capital of Cairo, Health Ministry spokesman Abdel Rahman Shaheen was quoted by the official MENA news agency as saying.

    The girl was hospitalized for fever on Monday and later moved to Manshiat al-Bakri hospital in Cairo, said the report.

    The Egyptian government has exerted more efforts to prevent further spread of bird flu since the fatal virus caused four human deaths in less than a week in late December, 2007.

    Among the 44 human cases, Egypt has reported 19 deaths since it detected the first H5N1 virus in dead poultry in February 2006 and the first human case in March of the same year.