Reuters is reporting the first case of the new H1N1 influenza virus in a 12-year-old American girl in Egypt. The source of the information is a Cairo-based official from the World Health Organisation. Read more: Reuters.

Two Women from South Africa are being tested on possible infections with the swine flu virus. The results could take some time as the samples have to be sent overseas for analysis. According to the AU health inspections have been set up at East African ports in order to prevent the virus to enter Africa. Read more The BBC.

African countries Burundi, Kenya, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Sudan, Uganda and Tanzania discuss how to respond to the current swine flu outbreak in Addis Ababa. Reasd more: Reuters News Agency.

The recession and the economical slowdown is hurting the African aviation sector at the most inconvenient time. Just when it seemed that the sector was experiencing tremendous growth rates due to increased economical activity with the outside world, the recession made an abrupt end to it. The growth motivated African avitaion to improve the quality, safety and service to provide the same standard as western carriers, due to increasing partnership with other non-African airline as well as the growing number of freight and passengers volumes.

In early April European and African representatives have met to discuss the establishment of a common strategic framework for air transport safety (European Commission).

Early during the year in January African aviation traffic dropped by 2.6% according to the International Airline Transport Association (IATA). Many African airlines are reducing capacity by cutting on routes from this year. Eritrean Airlines stopped flying from Asmara to Frankfurt (capitaleritrea), Air Namibia suspended flying to London, Air Senegal stopped operating at all and many other carriers took similar actions. The near future does not look promising as demand for travel and freight is continuing to drop. In addition IATA expressed concerns that the Swine Flu outbreak will further reduce demand when the timing could not be worse. The latest IATA statistics show that airline revenues declined by up to 20% for the month of March.

According to the WHO the swine flu epidemic has so far not broken out in Africa. There are no known cases of infected people on the continent. Given the poor medical infrastructure and a lacking response network on the continent, an outbreak in Africa could have devastating impact on the death toll and rate of infections linked to swine flu.