NAuthorities say the situation there is “under control” after an 11-year-old girl died of bird flu in Cambodia. The girl’s father was also infected with the H5N1 virus. These were the first cases of bird flu in the Southeast Asian country since 2014. However, fears of a further spread of the virus have not been fulfilled so far. No other infections were found in 29 people examined, including contacts of the girl and people with flu symptoms, Or Vandine, the state secretary and spokeswoman for the Cambodian Ministry of Health, said on Monday. The girl’s father also tested negative, but continued to be treated in the hospital. In Cambodia, 58 people have contracted the virus in around two decades, and 38 of them died from the disease.
The World Health Organization (WHO) announced that it was in close contact with the responsible authorities in Cambodia. In the province of Prey Veng, where the girl and her father come from, research is being carried out into the source and route of transmission. A large number of dead wild birds are said to have been found there. According to a statement from the American health authority, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), gene sequencing has shown that it is a virus strain that has been found in the Southeast Asian country for some time. This strain, named clade 2.3.2.1c, is said to be different from strain clade 2.3.4.4b circulating in the United States and other countries. The variant detected in Cambodia can also infect humans in some cases, but usually does not lead to transmission from person to person.
The subtype of the influenza A virus H5N1 has been worrying scientists and medical professionals around the world for a good quarter of a century. There have been repeated outbreaks since 1997, which have recently become more frequent again. The experts agree that if the virus can one day be transmitted from person to person, it has the potential for a pandemic around the world. Up until now, humans have been infected via animals, almost always via sick or dead birds. Almost 1,000 human infections were reported to the WHO, and about half of those infected died. So far, no cases have occurred in Germany, as reported by the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) in Berlin.
Transmission from mammal to mammal
The President of the Friedrich Loeffler Institute for Animal Health, Thomas Mettenleiter, described the H5N1 outbreak on a Spanish mink farm at the end of January as a warning sign. Although the virus had previously been detected in isolated mammalian species, such as seals, martens and foxes, the virus had also been transmitted to them by birds. On the mink farm, on the other hand, the virus was passed from mammal to mammal, a sign that the pathogen is adapting and that human-to-human transmission could become possible in the long term.
Peru is currently experiencing a major outbreak, where thousands of dead birds, especially pelicans, and almost 800 dead sea lions have been found on the coast in recent weeks. According to the authorities, the bird flu continues to spread in the region. In the past few weeks, rescue workers from the forest and wildlife service in protective suits have collected and buried hundreds of sea lions.
The Peruvian authorities recorded the first case in November. Since then, more than 60,000 birds have died from the virus. Since mid-January, the authorities have also registered an increase in the number of sea lion deaths. In early February, the Ministry of Health confirmed that a lion that had died in a zoo also had H5N1. In the same zoo, three sea lions and a dolphin had previously died as a result of bird flu.
Cases have already been found in practically every country in South America and in several Central American countries. In Chile, two weeks ago, health authorities discovered the first positive case in a sea lion on a northern beach. It is the first outbreak in Chile in 20 years. There are still no confirmed cases in Brazil, the world’s largest poultry exporter.