An eleven-year-old girl has died after contracting avian flu, health authorities in Cambodia have announced, where it is the first death since 2014 linked to this animal disease which is rarely transmitted to humans.
The girl, from the province of Prey Veng (southeast), fell ill on February 16, with symptoms of fever, cough and dry throat, the government health monitoring agency (CDCD) said on Wednesday. .
She then died at a children's hospital in the capital Phnom Penh, according to the official source, which does not specify the day.
She was “
positive for H5N1
,” a strain of avian flu that is highly contagious in birds, the CDCD found.
Call for vigilance
The World Health Organization (WHO) called for vigilance, in early February, in the face of the risk of transmission of avian flu to mammals, after cases detected in foxes, otters or sea lions. But the examples of nfected human beings remain rare, with 868 confirmed cases of H5N1 over the past twenty years, for 457 deaths, according to the WHO.
Read also Transmission of avian flu to mink: how Spain narrowly escaped disaster
In Cambodia, no cases in humans were recorded between 2015 and 2022, according to the UN agency, compared to 30 deaths between 2010 and 2014. Avian flu can be transmitted in the event of contact with birds.
Since the end of 2021, Europe has been grappling with its worst avian flu epizootic, which is also circulating on the American continent.
This has led to the culling of tens of millions of domestic poultry around the world, many of which carry the H5N1 strain.
