In Cambodia, the death of a young girl after contracting avian flu comes after no death had occurred in the country since 2014.
- In Asia, the first death for 9 years has been recorded due to avian flu.
- The risk of bird flu for humans remains low but the WHO calls for vigilance.
- The health situation with regard to avian flu in France has deteriorated in wildlife and on farms since August 2022.
Examples of cases of human beings infected with avian flu remain rare, but the consequences can be dramatic. An 11-year-old Cambodian girl has indeed died at the children’s hospital in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, after being infected with H5N1, a strain of avian influenza highly contagious in birds, as reported by VTN news .
Avian flu: the girl died very quickly after the first symptoms
On February 16, she presented symptoms of fever, cough and dry throat, the government health monitoring agency (CDCD) said on Wednesday, then her condition deteriorated rapidly and she would have died in less than a week. .
Globally, there have been more than 457 fatal cases of bird flu since 2003, according to theWHO. 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.
In early February, the World Health Organization (WHO) called for vigilance in the face of infections that had affected mammals, such as foxes, otters, or even mink.
“Recent mammal spillover needs close monitoring“, had declared Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director general of the WHO, adding that “At this time, the WHO assesses the risk to humans as low but we cannot assume this will remain the case and we must be prepared for any change in the status quo.”
Avian flu is currently raging in France
Transmission of the H5N1 virus occurs through close or prolonged contact between a human and a bird. A few human cases have been linked to the consumption of dishes prepared with contaminated raw poultry blood. The virus is not very contagious between humans: only one case of human-to-human transmission has been identified.
In France, bird flu is circulating and the health situation has also deteriorated. There has been significant mortality among wildlife but also many outbreaks of the virus in farms, since August 2022, as reported the government website.
For the moment, no human case has been recorded in France.
