Doctors are treating two children diagnosed with bird flu at Kantha Bopha hospitals in Phnom Penh and Siem Reap, health officials confirmed.

A four-year-old boy from Battambang province and a five-year-old girl from Kandal province mark the 15th and 16th human cases of H5N1 influenza in Cambodia this year.

Sok Touch, director of the communicable diseases control department at the Ministry of Health, told the Post yesterday that the boy is being cared for in Siem Reap, and the girl in Phnom Penh.

The girl fell ill about a month ago, said Tien Pisith, Kandal’s provincial deputy health director.

Her mother treated her with medication available in her village.

“Before sending her to Kantha Bopha hospital, her mother treated her with the doctors in the village, but she did not get better,” Pisith said.

Since her diagnosis, health officials have drawn blood from about 30 people who may have come into contact with the girl, to test them for the illness, Pisith said.

With 16 confirmed cases of the disease, 2013 already has seen more diagnoses of bird flu than any previous year, said Sonny Krishnan, a spokesman for the World Health Organisation in Cambodia.

At least nine people have died from the virus this year already.