A Cambodian health worker sprays disinfectant in the backyard of a home where a family lost a 3-year-old daughter to the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus, at Tuol Prik village, Kampong Speu province, Friday, March 24, 2006. The girl was Cambodia's fifth fatality from the disease since 2005, and the first this year, the government and WHO said in a joint statement Friday. (AP photo/Heng Sinith) 03.23.2006
KORNG PISEY DISTRICT, Cambodia (AFX) - Cambodian health workers have quarantined part of a village near the capital Phnom Penh after a three-year-old girl died of bird flu and seven others were feared to have caught the deadly virus, officials said.
At least 42 other people who had contact with the suspected victims were also being tested in Cambodia's first outbreak of the H5N1 virus in humans since early 2005, said Ly Sovann, head of the health ministry's infectious disease department.
The girl died Tuesday in a Phnom Penh hospital shortly after falling ill, Ly Sovann said. She was the fifth Cambodian to die of bird flu since 2003.
'She had contact with dead chickens,' Ly Sovann told Agence France-Presse.
Some 200 chickens and ducks in Phum Prich village, Korng Pisey district have been killed by the H5N1 strain of the virus, an agriculture ministry official said on condition of anonymity.
Health workers had disinfected the area and were educating villagers on how to recognise and combat bird flu, according to Ly Sovann.
Three of the suspected cases also had contact with the dead birds, while the other four had come into contact with the dead girl, officials said.
'We are not allowing them to touch the others and are keeping them in one place,' Ly Sovann said of the suspected bird flu victims, adding that none of them was in serious condition.
World Health Organisation spokeswoman Megge Miller also confirmed the girl died of the H5N1 virus.
She said the health body had visited the village, 45 kilometers west of Phnom Penh, and found the suspected victims to only be suffering fevers at that point.
KORNG PISEY DISTRICT, Cambodia (AFX) - Cambodian health workers have quarantined part of a village near the capital Phnom Penh after a three-year-old girl died of bird flu and seven others were feared to have caught the deadly virus, officials said.
At least 42 other people who had contact with the suspected victims were also being tested in Cambodia's first outbreak of the H5N1 virus in humans since early 2005, said Ly Sovann, head of the health ministry's infectious disease department.
The girl died Tuesday in a Phnom Penh hospital shortly after falling ill, Ly Sovann said. She was the fifth Cambodian to die of bird flu since 2003.
'She had contact with dead chickens,' Ly Sovann told Agence France-Presse.
Some 200 chickens and ducks in Phum Prich village, Korng Pisey district have been killed by the H5N1 strain of the virus, an agriculture ministry official said on condition of anonymity.
Health workers had disinfected the area and were educating villagers on how to recognise and combat bird flu, according to Ly Sovann.
Three of the suspected cases also had contact with the dead birds, while the other four had come into contact with the dead girl, officials said.
'We are not allowing them to touch the others and are keeping them in one place,' Ly Sovann said of the suspected bird flu victims, adding that none of them was in serious condition.
World Health Organisation spokeswoman Megge Miller also confirmed the girl died of the H5N1 virus.
She said the health body had visited the village, 45 kilometers west of Phnom Penh, and found the suspected victims to only be suffering fevers at that point.
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