Second survivor

Doctors and officials yesterday reported the first recovery from bird flu since January.

The five-and-a-half-year-old boy from Kampot town, who last Thursday was in critical condition in Phnom Penh’s Kantha Bopha hospital, had been “saved”, doctors from the hospital said.

When first admitted, “the child was in [a] coma and was suffering from severe pneumonia”, Kantha Bopha’s director, Dr Beat Richner, said in a Facebook post yesterday. “The child is no more needing oxygen and can start to eat little by little.”

The boy developed fever and difficulty breathing on March 27 and was transferred from the Kampot provincial hospital to Kantha Bopha four days later.

Neak Sovannary, governor of Kampot town, said doctors at Kantha Bopha would continue to monitor the boy’s health.

The five-year-old was the eighth child and 10th person confirmed to have bird flu this year. Of these others, all but an eight-month-old infant – the first to fall ill in January – have died.