Egyptian health authorities announced on Thursday a new case of A/H1N1 flu, bringing the number of such cases to 12 in the populous Arab country.

An Egyptian-American child, one year and six months old, tested positive for the new flu virus after arriving in Egypt from the United States on June 7, Health Ministry spokesman Abdel-Rahman Shahine said in a statement, adding that the child's condition is stable.

Earlier on Thursday, Egypt reported the 11th case of the new influenza, a Colombian wife of an American engineer, who began to develop symptoms on June 9 after arriving from United States on June 7.

On June 2, Egypt reported its first A/H1N1 influenza case, who was a 12-year-old Egyptian-American girl coming from the United States via Netherlands.

Egypt reported seven A/H1N1 flu cases at a dorm of the American University in Cairo (AUC) and the health ministry quarantined the dorm, which accommodates 110 students and 124 teachers, for seven days.

Egypt, the most populous Arab country that was hit hard by the fatal bird flu in 2006, decided in late April to cull all the pigs in the country to stem the highly infectious flu.

On Thursday, the World Health Organization (WHO) chief declared that the organization has decided to move its A/H1N1 flu alert level to phase six and that the widely spreading flu has developed into a full pandemic.

Margaret Chan told a news conference that the full pandemic in 41 years was assessed as a "moderate" one.

This is the first global flu epidemic in 41 years. As of Wednesday, 74 countries have officially reported 27,737 A/H1N1 infection cases to the WHO, including 141 deaths.

(Xinhua News Agency June 12, 2009)