The 2 human cases of bird flu infection in Cambodia weren’t transmitted by the patients to 1 one other, in accordance with public health experts.
The Cambodia Ministry of Health announced Friday that the 2 recently reported cases of H5N1 avian influenza in Prey Veng province weren’t attributable to “human-to-human transmission,” local English-language newspaper Khmer Times reported.
“Each cases have been concluded as H5N1 virus transmission from poultry, and this event just isn’t a human-to-human transmission,” a spokesperson for the agency said in an announcement to local media to make clear the speculations and shut down fears that the virus was already able to transmitting between humans.
Late last month, Medical Day by day learned about an 11-year-old girl who died at a hospital in Cambodia’s capital city Phnom Penh about per week after falling sick with the virus. She reportedly got ailing on Feb. 16 and was sent to the hospital for treatment but didn’t survive after suffering symptoms, including a high fever, cough and throat pain.
The opposite case was the girl’s father. Officials only discovered about his infection while investigating the case and conducting tests in the realm where the girl resided. The spokesperson confirmed in addition they tested 51 samples from other humans, including 20 close contacts and 31 with flu-like symptoms. But the outcomes were negative for the virus.
“The investigation team continues to be on standby for energetic case finding and can collect samples for testing from individuals with influenza-like symptoms,” the spokesperson added.
The Associated Press reported that the girl’s father tested positive the day after her death. He was isolated until he now not displayed flu symptoms and was only released after testing negative for bird flu 3 times.
Local health officials, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) concluded that the 2 infections were spread by poultry and never through transmission between the parent and the kid.
“While further characterization of the virus from these human cases is pending, available epidemiological and virological evidence suggest that current A(H5) viruses haven’t acquired the power of sustained transmission amongst humans, thus the likelihood of sustained human-to-human spread is low,” WHO said in an announcement, as quoted by The BMJ.
Avian influenza is understood to typically infect birds and poses little threat to humans since the virus is incapable of binding to cells in human respiratory tracts very effectively. Nevertheless, experts warned against complacency since viral spillovers from animals to humans will not be unimaginable.
Historically, avian influenza has infected lots of of individuals. A WHO report previously revealed that the virus has a 56% case fatality rate after recording 135 deaths from the 240 total cases of human infection recorded since January 2003.