A 3-year-old girl from Kompong Speu province died from avian influenza virus on Tuesday, the government and World Health Organization announced Friday.
Pun Puthy, from Tuol Prich village in Kong Pisey district’s Moha Russei commue, was the first Cambodian victim of the H5N1 virus in 2006 and the fifth known case of a bird flu fatality in Cambodia. She was also the first person known to have contracted the virus outside of Kampot province. The other four fatalities all occurred in the first four months of 2005.
International experts have repeatedly said that there have likely been additional cases of the disease in Cambodia, but the rural public health system has not been able to record them.
According to a Ministry of Health bulletin, the girl became ill on March 14 with a fever and was taken to Phnom Penh on March 20. She died in Kantha Bopha Hospital.
“We have trained hospital staff to be on the lookout for severe cases of pneumonia,” Dr Megge Miller of the WHO said Friday. “The samples taken from the girl tested positive at Pasteur Institute.”
Miller said that seven people, four adults and three young children, are being monitored for signs of the deadly disease. Test results are expected early next week, she said. Samples have also been taken from 42 people who had contact with the young girl before she died.
Avian influenza is now endemic in the wild bird populations of Southeast Asia, but it has yet to exhibit the ability to be transmitted from human to human.
Miller said that the girl was seen playing with sick chickens before she died.
“Her favorite thing was to run around and catch chickens and the sick chickens were easier to catch,” she said. “The parents didn’t seem to know anything about bird flu.”
The girl’s village was remote—some 40 minutes off the main road
—and health educators had not yet reached the area to inform inhabitants about the disease.
“The Ministry of Health is trying to get TV advisories back on the air. They have not aired since May or June,” she added.
