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Cambodia has reported a fresh case of human Highly Pathogenic Human Influenza, H5N1 avian flu, on July 2, 2025, the health ministry has reported. The infection was diagnosed in a 36-year-old woman.
This marks the 11th case in the country in 2025 and seventh in June alone. Six people succumbed to the infection this year.
The reports indicate a surge of H5N1 cases in Cambodia since 2023, before which the Southeast Asian country was free of the infection for almost a decade.
Officials said that the woman lives in the same province, Siem Reap, located in the central part of the country where the previous three cases were reported, but in a different village.
Her village, however, is about two miles away from the residences of the previous cases involving a woman, her teenaged son and another 41-year-old woman.
As per the statement published by United States-based Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, the patient has been admitted to a hospital and is receiving medical care in an intensive care unit.
“An investigation found that she had sick and dead chickens at her home and had touched and buried them. Similar poultry contact has been noted for most Cambodian patients, among whom the infections are often severe or fatal,” the statement said.
Though Cambodia has officially announced 10 cases of H5N1 this year, another case not made public but suspected was that of a 19-month-old boy from Takeo province, who reportedly succumbed to the infection, according to the weekly avian flu update by the Hong Kong’s Centre for Health Protection. The case was reported on June 30.
Erik Karlsson, a PhD scholar at the National Influenza Center and Pasteur Institute in Cambodia, posted on social media platform X (formerly Twitter) on June 29 that the latest cases in poultry and humans shows a reassortant of the virus to 2.3.2.1e genotype that has been found in humans and poultry since 2023.
The novel reassortant contains genes from the older clade 2.3.2.1c virus known to be circulating in Cambodia since 2014 as well as genes from the global clade 2.3.4.4b virus, he said.
There is no evidence of human-to-human transmission so far, but the increasing cases demand increasing vigilance and surveillance.
