PHNOM PENH (AFX) - The World Health Organization expressed \"great concern\"
over Cambodia\'s latest bird flu outbreak after three more suspected cases were
hospitalised following last week\'s death of a child from H5N1.
\"It\'s a great concern, it\'s a serious problem ... we have to take this as
seriously as possible,\" WHO representative Michael O\'Leary told Agence
France-Presse.
Three people -- one adult and two children -- are being treated for fever
and respiratory problems at a hospital in the capital Phnom Penh, health
officials said.
The suspected cases come from a village neighboring that of three-year-old
Mon Vuthy, who died Tuesday after falling ill with the H5N1 strain of the virus.
She was the first bird flu death in Cambodia this year and the fifth since
2003.
Five other people who had contact with the suspected cases are also being
tested, said Ly Sovann, head of the health ministry\'s department of infectious
diseases.
It is unknown how the three might have become infected with the deadly
virus, he said.
Agriculture ministry officials said tests are being done on poultry in the
area, but no traces of H5N1 have been found so far in any birds, despite the
deaths of hundreds in the area earlier this month.
This is particularly troubling, O\'Leary said, because if the three people
are found to have bird flu it would mean they had some exposure to birds that
\"we are not aware of\".
Seven other villagers thought to have caught bird flu after the girl died
tested negative for the virus, Ly Sovann said Saturday.
\"All the seven suspected patients are negative ... all of them are better,\"
he said.
The seven, all from the girl\'s village, fell ill with fevers around the same
time that the girl died.
Officials think the toddler became infected after playing with sick chickens
in Phum Prich village in Kompong Speu province, 45 kilometers west of the
capital.
Cambodia\'s last outbreak of bird flu in humans occurred in early 2005, while
the virus has been found in ducks in eastern Kompong Cham province twice since
February, triggering the slaughter of hundreds of birds.
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