A Cambodian man who died this week has tested positive for a severe strain of bird flu, the government said yesterday, raising the country's death toll from the disease to two.
Test results from the Pasteur Institute in the capital Phnom Penh late Thursday showed that 26-year-old Meas Ran who died earlier this week had the H5N1 strain of bird flu, Deputy Agriculture Minister Yim Voeun Tharn said.
Deputy Health Minister Heng Tay Kry confirmed that Meas Ran tested positive for H5N1.
That strain of bird flu began ravaging Asian poultry farms in December 2003, and also has claimed 47 human lives from Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand.
Meas Ran, from southern Kampot province, died at a Phnom Penh hospital late Tuesday after falling sick with a respiratory illness.
A 25-year-old woman from the same province also died from the disease on Jan. 30 in neighboring Vietnam.
About 30 chickens raised by the man's parents in the province's Tram Sorsor village had died early this month, Yim Voeurn Tharn said.
Megge Miller, an epidemiologist with the UN. WHO, said that before Meas Ran fell ill, he had collected chickens that were dying around his house and plucked them.
"We think he got sick from plucking the chickens," Miller said.
Officials from the government, the WHO and the Pasteur Institute were inspecting the village and surrounding areas for further signs of the disease, she said.
A ship that appears to be taking on the identity of a scrapped gas carrier exited the Strait of Hormuz on Friday, showing how strategies to get through the waterway are evolving as the Middle East war progresses. The vessel identifying as liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier Jamal left the Strait on Friday morning, ship-tracking data show. However, the same tanker was also recorded as having beached at an Indian demolition yard in October last year, where it is being broken up, according to market participants and port agent’s reports. The ship claiming to be Jamal is likely a zombie vessel that
Japan is to downgrade its description of ties with China from “one of its most important” in an annual diplomatic report, according to a draft reviewed by Reuters, as relations with Beijing worsen. This year’s Diplomatic Bluebook, which Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s government is expected to approve next month, would instead describe China as an important neighbor and the relationship as “strategic” and “mutually beneficial.” The draft cites a series of confrontations with Beijing over the past year, including export controls on rare earths, radar lock-ons targeting Japanese military aircraft and increased pressure around Taiwan. The shift in tone underscores a deterioration
LAW CONSTRAINTS: The US has been pressing allies to send warships to open the Strait, but Tokyo’s military actions are limited under its postwar pacifist constitution Japan could consider deploying its military for minesweeping in the Strait of Hormuz if a ceasefire is reached in the war on Iran, Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Toshimitsu Motegi said yesterday. “If there were to be a complete ceasefire, hypothetically speaking, then things like minesweeping could come up,” Motegi said. “This is purely hypothetical, but if a ceasefire were established and naval mines were creating an obstacle, then I think that would be something to consider.” Japan’s military actions are limited under its postwar pacifist constitution, but 2015 security legislation allows Tokyo to use its Self-Defense Forces overseas if an attack,
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) yesterday faced a regional election battle in Rhineland-Palatinate, now held by the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD). Merz’s CDU has enjoyed a narrow poll lead over the SPD — their coalition partners at the national level — who have ruled the mid-sized state for 35 years. Polling third is the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which spells a greater threat to the two centrist parties in several state elections in September in the country’s ex-communist east. The picturesque state of Rhineland-Palatinate, bordering France, Belgium and Luxembourg and with a population of about 4 million,
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