Bird flu kills 14th person in Cambodia this year

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) A 29-year-old man has become Cambodia's 14th person to die of bird flu this year, health officials said Thursday.

The country's Health Ministry and the U.N.'s World Health Organization said in a joint statement that the man died from the H5N1 bird flu virus on Nov. 6 after suffering from fever, headache, cough, chest pain, diarrhea, vomiting and seizures.

Cambodia's 14 bird flu fatalities and 26 confirmed cases this year are the country's highest annual total since the virus surfaced in 2003, and also the highest for H5N1 for any country this year.

The virus normally spreads between poultry, but can sometimes spread from poultry to humans.

Investigations showed that the man had contact with sick and dead poultry a week before his illness began, the statement said.

A 3-year-old boy from Kampong Speu province also was confirmed to have the virus and is in critical condition, it said.

There have been more than 645 confirmed H5N1 cases worldwide since 2003, about 60 percent of them fatal. Additionally, China has had more than 130 confirmed cases of the H7N9 bird flu strain since it emerged in March this year.