(RoyalPatriot.com )- Cambodian health authorities said this week that there was no human-to-human transmission of bird flu in the case of a father and daughter who both contracted the virus last month.
It was reported last week that an 11-year-old girl from the southeastern province of Prey Veng in Cambodia died last Wednesday after contracting bird flu on February 16.
The girl was sent to the hospital in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh after her condition worsened where tests confirmed she had Type A H5N1 bird flu.
The Cambodian Health Ministry collected samples from a dozen other people from the same village who were known to have had contact with her. Laboratory tests confirmed that her 49-year-old father was the only one infected with the virus. And while he displayed no major symptoms, he too was hospitalized as health officials investigated whether the infection was due to human-to-human transfer.
In a statement this week, Cambodia’s Communicable Disease Control Department (CDC) said that the investigation found that the man and his daughter both contracted the virus from “birds in the village” and no transmission between the two had been found, the Strait Times reported on Wednesday.
Avian influenza, or bird flu, typically spreads between sick poultry. However, it can occasionally spread from poultry to humans.
While there has been a wave of avian influenza worldwide over the last 18 months, health officials believe the current risk of poultry-to-human transmission remains low.
Professor James Wood, the head of veterinary medicine at Cambridge University told the Associated Press last week that despite “many humans” being exposed to the current H5N1 virus spreading among domestic and wild birds worldwide, “few people have been infected.”
According to the US Centers for Disease Control, the current H5N1 outbreak is primarily a health issue for animals and not humans. The CDC does recommend that people should avoid any direct contact with sick or dead birds or poultry.
