11-year-old girl dies of bird flu in Cambodia

An 11-year-old girl has died of bird flu in Cambodia, according to a statement from the Ministry of Health of the Southeast Asian country cited by The Associated Press news agency.

The deceased girl lived in a rural area in the province of Prey Veng, where it is common to live with poultry.

After more than a week with symptoms — including fever, cough and sore throat — she was diagnosed on Wednesday and died shortly after.

Since 2003, some 870 human cases of avian influenza A(H5N1) virus have been reported worldwide and more than half have died, although almost all of these deaths occurred before 2020. The World Health Organization record Salud mentions only seven cases and two deaths in the last three years.

Cambodian health authorities have asked citizens not to handle sick or dead birds.

Health Minister Mam Bunheng has warned that bird flu is a risk especially for children in contact with poultry, whether it is going to collect their eggs, feeding them or cleaning their cages.

Bunheng has detailed that 12 other people have been tested, including the girl's father, who has also tested positive although he has no symptoms, according to another statement cited by Reuters.

At the moment, there are no indications that there has been the feared transmission from person to person.

The A(H5N1) bird flu virus does not usually infect cells in the human throat, but it can rarely colonize the lungs and cause fatal pneumonia.

Cambodia detected 56 cases from 2003 to 2014 and 37 of them (66%) died, according to data from the World Health Organization.

The fear is that the virus will mutate and learn to transmit effectively between people, something that has never been observed before.

A little over a month ago, the analysis of an outbreak in a Spanish mink farm set off alarm bells.

The scientists warned that the virus most likely reached the fur facility, located in Carral (A Coruña), through a seagull and was capable of being transmitted from mink to mink.

It is the first known case of jumping between mammals.

The virus is spreading like never before.

Europe is suffering from the worst bird flu epidemic in its history, with more than 50 million poultry culled in a year.

Many American countries are on high alert.

On January 7, a 9-year-old girl from rural Ecuador tested positive for the virus and did well after being admitted to the intensive care unit.

It is the first case in the Latin American and Caribbean region.

The World Health Organization included in its records two positive cases of two workers at a farm with 150,000 laying hens in Guadalajara, where there was an outbreak of bird flu in September.

A study published this Thursday, led by scientists from the Center for the Coordination of Health Alerts and Emergencies of the Ministry of Health, suggests that the two workers did not become infected and what was detected was environmental contamination with genetic material from the virus.

The massive death of sea lions from bird flu in Peru also suggests that the virus may be jumping between mammals in the wild, according to alerts from Argentine and Peruvian scientists a couple of weeks ago.

The World Health Organization still considers the risk to people "low", but the director general of the institution, the Ethiopian Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has repeatedly expressed his concern.

“The A(H5N1) virus has spread widely in wild birds and poultry for 25 years, but we must closely monitor the recent spread to mammals,” he said on February 8.

“Since A(H5N1) first appeared in 1996, we have seen only rare and non-sustained transmissions to humans and between humans.

But we cannot assume that it will continue to be so.

We must prepare for any change in the

,” warned Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

You can follow