An 8-year-old boy in Fayoum province has contracted the bird flu virus after coming into contact with infected birds -- the 47th case among humans in Egypt since 2006, the Health Ministry said on Saturday.

The boy, Abdel Hamid el-Sayed Youssef, was taken to a local hospital with a high temperature, difficulty breathing and a pulmonary inflammation, spokesman Abdel Rahman Shahine said in a statement.

He moved to a Cairo hospital on Friday and is being treated with Tamiflu, the standard treatment for humans, it said.

An Egyptian woman from the same province southwest of Cairo died of the disease last week but a health official said there did not appear to have been contact between them.

Altogether 20 people have died of bird flu in Egypt since it arrived in the country in February 2006.

It is the third winter the virus has struck after lying low during Egypt´s hot summers.

Around 5 million households in Egypt depend on poultry as a main source of food and income, and the government has said this makes it unlikely the disease can be eradicated despite a large-scale poultry vaccination programme.

Deaths from bird flu total more than 230 worldwide since 2003 and have been reported in several African and Asian countries. Egypt has been the worst-hit country outside of Asia.