March 7, 2014

Following the deaths of hundreds of birds due to the H5N1 virus, Cambodia has designated bird flu contamination zones in Phnom Penh and Kandal province, the Ministry of Agriculture officials said.

In order to prevent further spread of the virus, Agriculture Minister Ouk Rabon signed two directives late last month saying that poultry being moved in or out of a three-kilometre radius from the outbreak epicentres had to be tested.

In 2013, a total of 26 people contracted bird flu from dead or sick poultry and 12 died. So far this year, five cases in humans have been confirmed, and one boy has died from the disease. Health officials believe that the boy's sister was also infected with bird flu, but she died before she could be tested.

On February 19, to prevent a possible spread to other poultry or birds living in the area,

Sieng Borin, Phnom Penh agriculture department chief, said that about 200 chickens, ducks and geese used for research at the Cambodian Agriculture Research and Development Institute in the capital's Dangkao district had to be culled and burned.

Borin said that at present, there is no bird flu outbreak anymore because they took measures immediately, adding that poultry was still not allowed to enter or leave the facility due to the bird flu zone the ministry had created.

A second zone has been established in Kandal province's Koh Thom district where almost 200 ducks have died since February 15, Hing Hieng, Kompong Kong commune chief, said.

Lotfi Allal, team leader of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization Emergency Centre for Trans-boundary Animal Disease in Phnom Penh, said that ducks were a main carrier of the virus.

A total of 40 outbreaks of H5N1 in poultry have been confirmed between 2004, when the virus was first detected in Cambodia, and late last year, he said, adding that outbreaks are declared as soon as a single bird tests positive.

When there is an outbreak, the containment measures are always culling and disinfection of the area, the restriction of movement of poultry, and people in affected areas are not allowed to re-raise [birds] for thirty days, Allal said.