Two more children have died in Cambodia of bird flu

Associated Press

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PHNOM PENH, Cambodia—Two more children have died in Cambodia of bird flu, bringing the number of fatal cases this year to four and the number of cases overall to five.

The Cambodian office of the U.N.'s World Health Organization said a 17-month-old girl from central Kampong Speu province and a 9-year-old girl from southern Kampot province died Monday after being hospitalized.

A Cambodian woman buys chicken at a market in Phnom Penh on Tuesday.

That followed a report Friday of three new human cases, two of them fatal, in the first three weeks of this year. That was already as many cases as the Southeast Asian country reported in all of 2012. All three cases last year were fatal, as have been 23 of the 26 cases reported since 2005.

WHO says bird flu, also known as avian influenza, or H5N1, has killed 360 other people worldwide since surfacing in 2003. Most human cases have been linked to contact with infected poultry.

Friday WHO and Cambodia's health ministry announced that a 15-year-old girl in a village in southeastern Takeo province and a 35-year-old man in central Kampong Speu province had died. An 8-month-old boy in the capital, Phnom Penh, was treated and survived.

The disease remains hard for people to catch, but experts fear it could mutate into a more deadly form that spreads easily from person to person. So far, most human cases have been linked to contact with infected poultry.

Last week, international scientists who last year halted controversial research with the deadly bird flu virus said they were resuming their work as countries adopt new rules to ensure safety.

An outcry had erupted when two labs in the Netherlands and the U.S. reported they had created easier-to-spread versions of bird flu. Amid fierce debate about the oversight of such research and whether it might aid terrorists, those scientists voluntarily halted further work last January.

Those scientists announced Wednesday they were ending their moratorium now that health authorities have had time to determine how they will oversee high-stakes research involving dangerous germs. Several countries have already issued new rules.

In letters published in the journals Science and Nature this week, scientists wrote that those who meet their country's requirements have a responsibility to resume studying how the bird flu might mutate to become a bigger threat