A Kampong Cham province man suspected to have avian influenza will become the year’s eighth verified case if ongoing tests at the Institut Pasteur’s laboratory confirm him positive, health officials said yesterday.

The man was admitted to the Kampong Cham provincial hospital with respiratory problems after eating two ducks that had died in his village, where several poultry recently had died, said Ly Sovann, deputy director of the Communicable Disease Control Department.

Seang Nath, director of the health centre in Mesor Chrey, the patient’s home commune, said he quickly had sent the patient to the provincial referral hospital after learning that he had developed symptoms consistent with H5N1 on February 6. Despite government education efforts, “some villagers are still eating poultry that are sick or died,” he said.

To contact the reporters on this story: Mom Kunthear at [email protected]

Justine Drennan at [email protected]