CAIRO — Adel Abdel Azim's affection for his chickens may end up killing him.

When the Egyptian government outlawed raising poultry on roofs and balconies in February of last year to curb bird flu, the Cairo teacher whisked his brood straight into his bedroom. He plies them with aspirin and tea to ward off the disease.

"The government will not feed us when we are hungry," Abdel Azim, 45, said as he kissed one of his 15 birds while sitting in his living room. "I know how to protect my chickens."

Egypt, where domestic arrangements like Abdel Azim's are the norm, has emerged as one of two countries hardest-hit by bird flu, along with Indonesia. While the panic in Europe and the U.S. has abated, Egypt records as many as five new cases every week. In April, a 15-year-old girl died after contracting the disease from the birds that shared her home.

Moreover, the North African nation lies directly on a major bird-migration route between Europe and Africa. The country of 76 million people is effectively an incubator for the virus, increasing the chances it will spread to other countries, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization said April 2.

FEARS OF A PANDEMIC

Infection in fowl may create opportunities for the virus to change into a form that spreads easily among humans, scientists say.

Since the Middle East's most-populous nation discovered its first case of bird flu last year, 14 people have died out of 34 reported infections. Egypt has now recorded more deaths from the disease than any nation outside Asia.

"We are dealing with a society where chickens are part of the family," said Ibrahim el-Kerdani, spokesman for the World Health Organization's regional office in Cairo. "The government is working very hard. However, there is a lot of coordination missing between its various agencies."

Egypt started vaccinating poultry after the first outbreak of bird flu in February 2006. Within a month the government ran out of vaccine and sent police to cull an estimated 15 million birds, or 80 percent of the country's poultry.

The government spent $30 million to compensate farmers last year, paying $1 for every culled bird, according to the Health Ministry. The ministry said last month it needed $450 million to fight avian influenza.

The country, where chicken is the most-eaten meat, stopped the compensation program because people exaggerated the number of birds they owned, Health Minister Hatem El-Gabali said.

People hid their poultry from the government's execution squads, contributing to the spread of the disease, according to the World Health Organization.

CONSPIRACY THEORY

What complicates matters is the general reluctance among Egyptians to believe government warnings on the dangers of bird flu and sharing living space with poultry. Bird flu broke out at about the same time 1,033 people died when a ferry owned by a member of parliament from the ruling National Democratic Party, sank in the Red Sea.

"The problem is people think we fabricated the whole bird flu thing to cover up the ferry disaster," said Sayed Abbas, head of bird flu committee at Egypt's Health Ministry. "Maybe we would lie about something domestic, but bird flu is a global issue and we are very transparent about it."

As many as five million Egyptian households raise poultry in their backyards, both as a source of nutrition and income. The government is battling a culture that doubts the quality of poultry that isn't raised, fed and slaughtered at home according to Islamic rites.

"The government wants men to be impotent to control over- population," said Abdel Azim. "It invented the bird flu to force us to eat the hormone-pumped chickens that make us sterile."

Mohamed Attiya, a handyman, said he would divorce his wife if she cooked farmed or frozen chicken.

"In this country, you never know the truth, never," he said. "They would poison us if they can. Trust me."

The virus is known to have infected 291 people in 12 countries since 2003, killing 172 of them as of April 11, says the World Health Organization.