Cambodia, an 11-year-old girl died of bird flu

An 11-year-old Cambodian girl has died after contracting bird flu. The Phnom Penh government announced it, revealing that it was the first known human infection with the H5N1 strain in the country since 2014. The girl, who lived with her family in Prey Veng province, east of the capital, was diagnosed with the virus on February 16 after experiencing symptoms such as high fever and cough. When her condition deteriorated, she was transferred to Phnom Penh National Children’s Hospital for treatment, but she died two days ago.

Since the beginning of 2022, avian flu has devastated farms around the world, leading to the death of more than 200 million birds due to disease or mass culling. The World Health Organization earlier this month said the risk to humans remained low.

What is bird flu

Avian influenza was identified for the first time over a century ago in Italy: it is a disease of birds caused by a type A influenza virus, which can be either low or highly pathogenic. Widespread all over the planet, avian flu is capable of infecting almost all species of birds, albeit with very different manifestations, from the lightest ones to the highly pathogenic and contagious forms that generate acute epidemics. When caused by a highly pathogenic form, the disease develops suddenly, followed by rapid death in almost 100% of cases. The fear of a new pandemic, originating from a passage of the avian virus to humans, has set in motion a series of extraordinary prevention measures all over the world.

What are the risks for humans

As explained by the Istituto Superiore della Sanità, since 2003, WHO has launched an alarm to all international institutions to cooperate to implement preventive plans and actions to reduce the risk of the avian virus passing on to humans. “An essential condition for viruses that are normally hosted by animals to become pathogenic for humans is that in the reassortment process they acquire genes from human viruses, which therefore make them easily transmissible from person to person. The cases of avian influenza on humans recorded in cases of direct transfer from infected poultry to people during 2003 and 2004. Of the 15 subtypes of avian viruses, H5N1 circulating since 1997, has been identified as the most worrying precisely because of its ability to mutate rapidly and acquire genes from viruses that infect other animal species. Birds that survive H5N1 shed it over a period of at least 10 days.”

The ISS adds: “Since the beginning of 2003, H5N1 has made a series of species jumps, acquiring the ability to infect even cats and mice, thus becoming a much more worrying public health problem. The virus’s ability to infect pigs has long been known, and therefore the promiscuity of humans, pigs and poultry is notoriously considered a high risk factor.In recent epidemics, starting in 2003, the ability of this virus to directly infect also humans has been documented humans, causing acute forms of flu which in many cases led to death.The main risk, which raises fears of the advent of a new pandemic after the three that occurred during the 20th century (1918, 1957, 1968), is that the coexistence of the avian virus with that of human influenza, in a person infected with both, facilitates the recombination of H5N1 and makes it capable of being transmitted in the human population”.