An 11-year-old girl has died in Cambodia after contracting bird flu, local health officials said, a rare human fatality occurring during an outbreak of the virus in Europe.
In this poor Southeast Asian kingdom, the last death related to the animal disease was in March 2014, the health ministry said on Thursday.
The girl from Prey Veng province (southeast) fell ill with symptoms including fever, cough and dry throat on February 16, the state health monitoring agency (CDCD) said on Wednesday.
She then died in a children’s hospital in the capital Phnom Penh, according to the official source, which does not give the date.
The girl was “positive for H5N1,” a strain of avian flu highly contagious to birds, the CDCD found.
The virus has led to the slaughter of tens of millions of domestic poultry around the world, particularly in Europe, which has been struggling with its worst livestock epidemic since late 2021, avian influenza, which is also circulating in the Americas.
In early February, the World Health Organization (WHO) dismissed fears of an H5N1 pandemic but called for vigilance after cases were found in mammals including foxes, otters and sea lions.
Examples of people infected remain rare, with 868 confirmed cases of H5N1 over the past twenty years with 457 deaths, including one in China, according to the WHO.
No human cases were recorded in Cambodia between 2015 and 2022, compared with 30 deaths between 2010 and 2014, according to the UN agency.
dead wild birds
This is the 57th detected case since 2003. Only 19 people survived, Cambodia’s health ministry said.
“Avian flu continues to threaten the health of Cambodians, particularly affecting children,” Health Minister Mam Bunheng said.
The leader urged parents to keep their children away from sick or dead poultry and other birds.
Many dead wild birds have been found near a lake near the village where the deceased girl lived and authorities are awaiting the results of tests to determine the presence of the bird flu virus, he added.
The previous such death in Cambodia was of a two-year-old girl who had direct contact with dead chickens, WHO said at the time.
In 2013, 14 people died in the kingdom from bird flu in what was then the worst outbreak since 2003.
The virus can be transmitted to humans, most often through direct contact with infected poultry.
The WHO wanted to reassure about the low risk of infection between humans, as the virus is not well adapted, but the intense spread among small mammals creates the possibility that it could evolve.