Girl in Cambodia dies from rare bird flu case

An 11-year-old girl has died from the bird flu in Cambodia’s first known case in humans in nearly a decade.

Her father got infected by the same H5N1 strain shortly after, raising questions about the possibility of dreaded human-to-human transmission — though family members might have caught the virus from local birds.

The girl lived in a rural part of southeastern Cambodia and developed a high fever. Health officials said she died this week shortly after being admitted to the hospital in the capital, Phnom Penh.

Officials are testing dead wild birds near the girl’s home and at least a dozen other people for H5N1.

“So far, it’s too early to know if it’s a human-to-human transmission or exposure to the same environmental conditions. And so that’s why we need more investigation to clarify the mode of transmission,” Dr. Sylvie Briand, the World Health Organization’s director of Global Infectious Hazard Preparedness, told reporters Friday.

Human cases have occurred since the strain was detected in the late 1990s, though they remain rare and typically result from contact with an infected bird.

H5N1 has circulated among bird populations for decades, but it sparked an outbreak at a Spanish mink farm last fall.

It also spilled into otters and sea lions, raising fears about a wider problem on the heels of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The global H5N1 situation is worrying, given the wide spread of the virus in birds around the world and the increasing reports of cases in mammals, including humans,” Dr. Briand said. “When you see that there are a number of potential cases surrounding this initial case, you always wonder what has happened. Is it because maybe the initial case has transmitted the disease to other humans? And so we are really concerned about the potential human-to-human transmission coming from this initial spillover from animals.”

She said the fatality rate among known human cases is over 50%.

One of the main fears is that the flu strain could mutate within intermediary mammal species in a way that lets it spread among humans efficiently, posing the risk of another pandemic.

“For the moment, the WHO assesses the risk to humans as low,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said this month. “But we cannot assume that will remain the case, and we must prepare for any change in the status quo.”