Fifth fatal bird flu case confirmed in Cambodia amid growing outbreak
Five people have died and another remains in critical condition as H5N1 continues to spread across species, raising fears of future human-to-human transmission.
Credit: PETA
Five people have now died from bird flu in Cambodia this year, according to the country's Ministry of Health.
Cambodia has reported seven human H5N1 infections so far this year. Three children and two adult men have died, while another woman remains in critical condition. The only non-fatal case involved an adult woman who had no known contact with sick or dead poultry.
The latest victim, a 52-year-old man from the eastern Svay Rieng province, had reportedly handled sick and dead poultry two days before falling ill, developing a “fever, cough, shortness of breath, and difficulty breathing” before he died in hospital.
Bird flu in the United States
The avian flu virus has persistently devastated millions of farmed animals, with the current outbreak affecting over 174 million birds across 51 US states since 2022. The current strain has alarmed scientists with its ability to cross over into other farmed animals, including pigs and cows.
Scientists and experts fear that with each infection, the virus has a chance of mutating and becoming more dangerous and more efficient in infecting humans. If the virus then adapts to spread from human to human, “that’s when you’re going to have the pandemic,” Robert Redfield, who served as director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from 2018 to 2021, previously said about the current spread of bird flu.
The former director of the CDC is among those who have previously warned that bird flu will likely cause a pandemic at some point. “I really do think it’s very likely that we will, at some time, it’s not a question of if, it’s more of a question of when we will have a bird flu pandemic,” Redfield warned.
World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has also voiced concern over the spread of H5N1 to mammals, stating: "H5N1 has spread widely in wild birds and poultry for 25 years, but the recent spillover to mammals needs to be monitored closely."
He noted that the current risk to humans remains low, but warned: "we cannot assume that will remain the case, and we must prepare for any change in the status quo," he said.
Tedros also urged the public to avoid contact with dead or sick wild animals and called on countries to enhance surveillance in areas where humans and animals closely interact.
Credit: Anima International
Wildlife populations are also being devastated, with millions of wild birds and thousands of mammals killed by bird flu in recent years. Its current spread has ranged from endangered animals like Peruvian pelicans which had more than 40 percent of their population wiped out within just a few weeks, to remote cases like the death of an infected polar bear in the northernmost community of Alaska last year. Scientists have called it a ‘wildlife pandemic”.
According to the Word Organization for Animal Health, the current outbreak of bird flu is caused by several factors, including the globalization of trade, wild birds and their migratory routes, and the farming of animals for human consumption.
Worryingly, a concerning lack of data in tracking the true rate of avian influenza cases in the US could make it harder to respond to the spread of the virus, according to leading disease experts.
In May, the Trump-Vance administration terminated a major contract to produce a human bird flu vaccine, while this month, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. also fired all 17 members of the CDC’s advisory committee on vaccine policy and recommendations.
“I’m optimistic that they will continue to support the development of these vaccines. It would be a crime right now to stop it,” said Scott Hensley, a virologist at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia who worked on an avian flu vaccine for cattle.
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