Cambodian mother and baby die from bird flu

Cambodian bird flu deaths show ongoing threat

Radio Australia
Updated February 24, 2011

An expert in global diseases says the death of a Cambodian mother and her baby from bird flu are a timely reminder that the world must not forget about animal influenza. Earlier this month a 5 year old Cambodian girl also died from bird flu - it was the first such death worldwide since early 2010. But it's not just Cambodia that is at risk. Many Asian countries remain vulnerable to animal diseases crossing over to humans.

Reporter: Liam Cochrane
Speakers: Dr Nima Asgari, public health specialist, World Health Organisation, Cambodia; Dr Subhash Morzaria, regional manager, Emergency Centre for Transboundary Animal Diseases, UN Food and Agriculture Organisation

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COCHRANE: Twenty one year old Prak Sophorn and her 11 month old son were visiting relatives in Cambodia's southeast when it is believed they came into contact with sick poultry. They travelled back to their homes on the other side of the country and became sick, but at first bird flu was not suspected.

ASGARI: Our understanding is that the initial symptoms were basically fever, cough, breathlessness, so your classical respiratory infection.

COCHRANE: That's Dr Nima Asgari, a public health specialist with the World Health Organisation in Cambodia. He says only after the Prak Sophorn died on February 12 did doctors check her baby son for bird flu and found both mother and child had contracted H5N1, a strain of bird flu.

Dr Subhash Morzaria, UN Food and Agriculture Organisation's regional manager of the Emergency Centre for Transboundary Animal Diseases, based in Bangkok.

MORZARIA: This is not unusual. When we get outbreaks of disease there are still very poor people who eat sick birds, sometimes not very well cooked and would likely be infected. And this is what's happened in this case.

COCHRANE: Dr Morzaria says any human infection is a concern as it suggests a lack of awareness about handling sick birds. In fact, while the urgent threat of bird flu may have fallen off the global media agenda, several countries remain endemic, meaning the disease is entrenched and sporadic outbreaks are expected to continue.

In Asia, the hotspots are Indonesia, Vietnam, Bangladesh and West Bengal.

Dr Subhash Morzaria says Japan has emerged as a new risk.

MORZARIA: The virus is being actually spread by wild birds. So we now know that wild birds are infected with highly pathogenic avian influenza, H5N1 virus. And [the wild birds] then shed the virus when they're migrating to Japan. Somehow the virus is then jumping to the poultry and causes these huge outbreaks.

COCHRANE: Bird flu was initially controlled in Japan and this reemergence in a developed nation is a major concern to health workers. But, Dr Subhash Morzaria from the FAO, says most transmissions of bird flu still occur through raising or trading in poultry and he says that is where the resources should stay.

MORZARIA: Moving from that into wild birds is a red herring, I think. We have to be aware that wild birds carry. We have to be aware of the need for biosecurity. But most of the infection and focus of control has to be in endemic countries where there's the transmission from poultry to poultry.

COCHRANE: Dr Morzaria says it is important to maintain a watch for emerging diseases and to make sure existing ones do not reemerge. Developing countries in Asia, with their dependence on agriculture are particularly at risk, says Dr Morzaria, citing the nipah virus transmitted by bats in South Asia, rabid dogs in Bali and anthrax in bangladesh. In fact, Dr Morzaria says bird flu is part of wider trend of globalised human behaviour opening the doors for animal diseases.

MORZARIA: About 70 per cent of the animal diseases that emerge are infective to human beings. This particular trend is going to continue because of the human activity. We are intensifying our farming systems, so there is a high population of domestic animals for food consumption. There is high population of human beings. There is increased deforestation. There is greater contact between different animal species and human beings, and this is really going to enhance opportunities for pathogens to jump from one species to another.

COCHRANE: Dr Subhash Morzaria says the most effective prevention will occur if governments work together.
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Cambodian mother and baby die from bird flu after handling, eating infected meat

By The Associated Press (CP)

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — A Cambodian mother and her 11-month-old son have died from bird flu after preparing and eating meat contaminated by the deadly H5N1 virus, health officials said.

The 19-year-old mother and her baby fell ill with a high fever and cough two days after handling and consuming infected poultry during a visit with relatives in eastern Prey Veng province, according to a joint statement issued late Wednesday by Cambodia's Ministry of Health and the World Health Organization.

The mother died Feb. 12 at a private clinic in her home province of Banteay Meanchey, while her son died five days later in a hospital intensive care ward in Siem Reap, it said.

Well-cooked meat is safe to eat, but undercooked or raw poultry can infect humans if ingested. Slaughtering or preparing sick or dead birds can also cause infection.

The cases follow the death of a 5-year-old girl earlier this month in the capital, Phnom Penh, which has also been linked to contact with sick poultry.

"Compared to last year, we have seen more cases of H5N1 avian influenza this year," Health Minister Mam Bun Heng said in the statement. "There seems to be a strong link between preparing and eating sick birds and becoming infected in all the three cases. I urge people to only cook and eat healthy birds."

WHO has confirmed 13 human bird flu cases in Cambodia since 2003, including 11 deaths.

The H5N1 virus raged across Asia in late 2003, decimating poultry stocks. Many countries have since attacked it at its source by vaccinating chickens and ducks or improving biosecurity and hygiene measures on farms.

However, the virus remains endemic within poultry stocks in several countries and outbreaks tend to flare during the winter months.

Human cases remain rare, with most infections linked to close contact with sick birds, but experts fear the virus — which kills about 60 per cent of those sickened — will mutate into a form that spreads easily among people, potentially sparking a pandemic.

Globally, 309 people have died from the H5N1 virus since 2003, nearly half of them in Indonesia, according to the WHO.