Cambodia Reports 11-Year-Old Child Dies Due to Avian Flu Infection

Illustration of poultry. (Wikimedia Commons/Richard Nyberg/USAIDVietnam)

JAKARTA - Cambodia reports that an 11-year-old girl from a province east of the capital Phnom Penh has died after being infected with the H5N1 bird flu or better known as bird flu.

This is the first known human infection with the H5N1 strain in the Southeast Asian country since 2014, Health Minister Mam Bunheng said in a statement on Thursday.

The girl from Prey Veng Province was diagnosed with bird flu after falling ill with a high fever and cough on Feb. 16, the statement said.

While quoting The Guardian, the girl lives near a conservation area, and health officials have taken a sample from a bird that died there.

As his condition worsened, he was transferred to the National Children's Hospital in Phnom Penh for treatment, but died on Wednesday, the health ministry said.

In this regard, Cambodian health authorities are urging the public not to handle dead or sick animals and birds, and to call hotlines if anyone suspects they have been infected by this disease.

Since early last year, bird flu has hit farms worldwide, causing the death of more than 200 million birds from the disease or mass culling, the World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH) recently told Reuters.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO) earlier this month noted the spread of H5N1 influenza in mammals, but said the risk to humans remained low.

H5N1 has been spreading among poultry and wild birds for 25 years, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a briefing, but recent reports of infections in minks, otters and seals "should be closely monitored".

It is known, humans who have been infected with bird flu in the past usually work on poultry farms or have close contact with infected birds.