A chicken seller prepares chickens at a market in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. REUTERS/Chor SokuntheaPHNOM PENH (AFX) - Bird flu has been found in chicken samples taken from a Cambodian village where a toddler died of the virus last week, health officials said.
The outbreak is the second to be reported in two days in Cambodia, where the virus has struck for the fourth time since February after a year without any reported cases.
A three-year-old girl died of the virus March 21 after playing with sick chickens in the village, becoming Cambodia's first bird flu victim this year and the fifth since 2003.
One of the birds on her family's farm in Kompong Speu province's Tuol Prich village, 45 kilometers (28 miles) west of the capital Phnom Penh, tested positive for H5N1, the agriculture ministry said.
It was previously unknown where she caught the virus from.
The infected chicken was among 95 birds recently tested, the ministry said, adding that health officials would destroy the hundreds of chickens and ducks remaining in the village after a mass die-off earlier this month.
No new human infections have been found, officials said.
The discovery follows another bird flu outbreak reported yesterday in ducks on two family farms in southwestern Cambodia near Vietnam.
The virus has also been found in ducks in the eastern province of Kompong Cham twice since February, triggering the slaughter of hundreds of birds.
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