PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — Cambodia on Friday reported three new human cases of bird flu, two of them fatal, in the first three weeks of this year. That's as many cases as the Southeast Asian country reported in all of 2012.
The cases are among the first reported in 2013 for the virulent H5N1
virus, which the World Health Organization says has killed 360 other
people worldwide since surfacing in 2003.
WHO and Cambodia's health ministry announced that a 15-year-old girl in a
village in southeastern Takeo province and a 35-year-old man in central
Kampong Speu province died after being hospitalized with H5N1, better
known as bird flu. An 8-month-old boy in the capital, Phnom Penh, was
treated and survived.
Cambodia reported three cases last year, all of them fatal. Since 2005, it has recorded 21 cases, 19 of them fatal.
The disease remains hard for people to catch, but experts fear it could
mutate into a more deadly form that spreads easily from person to
person. So far, most human cases have been linked to contact with
infected poultry.
On Wednesday, international scientists who last year halted
controversial research with the deadly bird flu virus said they were
resuming their work as countries adopt new rules to ensure safety.
An outcry had erupted when two labs — in the Netherlands and the U.S. —
reported they had created easier-to-spread versions of bird flu. Amid
fierce debate about the oversight of such research and whether it might
aid terrorists, those scientists voluntarily halted further work last
January.
Those scientists announced Wednesday they were ending their moratorium
now that health authorities have had time to determine how they will
oversee high-stakes research involving dangerous germs. Several
countries have already issued new rules.
In letters published in the journals Science and Nature this week,
scientists wrote that those who meet their country's requirements have a
responsibility to resume studying how the bird flu might mutate to
become a bigger threat.
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