Bird flu situation worrying after girl dies in Cambodia: WHO

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said earlier this month that the risk of bird flu to humans was low, and Briand emphasized that this assessment had not changed. She said that the WHO was waiting for test results to establish whether the Cambodian girl’s contact cases were also infected. So far, cases of bird flu in humans had been “sporadic,” Briand said.

“But when you see that there are a number of potential cases surrounding this initial case, you always wonder what has happened: is it because maybe the initial case has transmitted the disease to other humans?” she said. “So we are really concerned about the potential human-to-human transmission coming from this initial spillover from animals.”

Investigators are also working to establish whether the girl, her father and the contact cases were exposed to infected birds. Wild birds were found dead at a lake near the girl’s remote village. Globally, there have been more than 450 bird flu cases in humans since 2003, according to the WHO. The death rate for humans with H5N1 is “over 50 percent,” Briand said.