Bird flu: 11 year-old girl dies in Cambodia
February 23, 2023
An 11-year-old girl in Cambodia's eastern Prey Veng province has died from bird flu, health authorities said.
It is the country's first fatality from the virus in years.
What we know about the bird flu death
The girl fell ill on February 16 with a fever, cough and sore throat. She was sent to be treated at hospital in the capital, Phnom Penh. She was diagnosed on Wednesday and died shortly afterward, Cambodia's Communicable Disease Control Department said in a statement Wednesday.
It did not specify the time of death, but said that test results confirmed that the girl was "positive for H5N1," referring to the bird flu virus. The disease typically spreads from birds to humans through direct contact.
Health officials have taken samples from a dead wild bird at a conservation area near the girl's home, the Health Ministry said on Thursday. Cambodian Health Minister Mam Bunheng urged parents to keep their children away from poultry as well as sick or dead birds.
Cambodia had 56 human cases of H5N1 from 2003 through 2014 and 37 of them were fatal, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
The spread of bird flu
Since late 2021, Europe has been gripped by its worst-ever outbreak of bird flu, with North and South America also experiencing severe outbreaks. This has led to the culling of tens of millions of domestic poultry worldwide, many with the H5N1 strain.
Bird flu, also known as avian influenza, normally spreads in poultry and wasn't deemed a threat to people until a 1997 outbreak among visitors to live poultry markets in Hong Kong.
Most human cases worldwide have involved direct contact with infected poultry, but concerns have arisen recently about infections in a variety of mammals and the possibility the virus could evolve to spread more easily between people.
Symptoms of H5N1 infection are similar to that of other flus, including cough, aches and fever, and in serious cases, patients can develop life-threatening pneumonia.
H5N1 spillover to mammals
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus earlier this month expressed concern about avian influenza infections in mammals including minks, otters, foxes and sea lions.
"H5N1 has spread widely in wild birds and poultry for 25 years, but the recent spillover to mammals needs to be monitored closely,'' he warned, stressing that "for the moment, WHO assesses the risk to humans as low."
"But we cannot assume that will remain the case, and we must prepare for any change in the status quo," Ghebreyesus said.
Globally, there have been more than 450 fatal bird flu cases since 2003, according to the WHO.
dh/rt (AP, AFP)