Egypt has detected its first human case of the highly pathogenic H5N1 bird flu virus since May in an Egyptian woman who raised ducks from her home, a World Health Organization official said on Tuesday.

Hassan el-Bushra, regional adviser for communicable diseases surveillance at the World Health Organization, said the woman had tested positive for the avian influenza virus in tests carried out by Egyptian health authorities.

The new infection brings the number of human cases in Egypt to 15, of whom six have died. All the previous infections were detected between March and May after the virus first surfaced in Egyptian poultry in February.

The woman, 39-year-old Hanan Aboul Magd of the Nile Delta province of Gharbiya, has been in hospital since October 4 and has been treated with the drug Tamiflu, state news agency MENA said.

The woman was on a respirator but her condition was stable, MENA said. Her family was being tested for the virus.

Egypt has had the largest cluster of human bird flu cases outside of Asia, and the fresh case came a month after authorities found a cluster of new cases in birds following a two-month lull in detected poultry cases.