Egyptian Health Minister Hatem el- Gabali on Saturday met with visiting newly-elected World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Margaret Chan and asked for both technical and financial assistance to Egypt to combat bird flu.

Egypt needed the international organization's help in case the bird flu mutated into a pandemic disease, Egyptian news agency MENA quoted the ministry's media adviser Abdelrahman Shahin as saying.

During the meeting, Gabali and Chan discussed efforts to strengthen cooperation and WHO's five-year health development program for the Arab and African regions, the report said.

Gabali stressed the need to improve African countries' health capabilities, while Chan hailed Egypt and Arab countries for backing her nomination as the organization's director-general.

Chan, former health chief of China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, was elected unopposed as the new WHO chief on Nov. 9 and is expected to take office in January 2007 for a five-year term.

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. So far seven people have died of the fatal virus in the country.

Source: Xinhua