Cambodia
Southeast Asian nation of 17 million; now central to the 2026 global H5N1 human-case picture.
Cambodia confirmed its sixth human H5N1 case of 2026 on 27 September, a poultry farmer in Oddar Meanchey, making it the largest single source of the 11 human cases Hong Kong's health agency counts worldwide this year.
Last refreshed: 3 October 2026 · Appears in 2 active topics
Why does Cambodia keep appearing in H5N1 reports when the US dairy story dominates?
Timeline for Cambodia
Confirmed its sixth human H5N1 case of 2026
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Pandemics and BiosecurityBackground
Cambodia is a Southeast Asian country of around 17 million people, bordered by Thailand, Laos and Vietnam, with an economy built on rice, cassava and fishing. Smallholder poultry farming, with backyard ducks and chickens living close to households, is widespread across its rural provinces and is the structural reason the country keeps appearing in H5N1 case reports.
Its human H5N1 surveillance system dates to a 2004-06 cluster and was built with US CDC and WHO support, giving Cambodia higher case-detection sensitivity than most of its Mekong neighbours. The cases it detects trace to poultry-endemic clades that diverged years earlier from the lineage driving the US dairy-cattle outbreak, a separate surveillance thread rather than an extension of the American one.
Regionally, Cambodian case data serves as a proxy for wider avian-influenza activity across the Mekong basin, and shared flyway routes give its poultry regions relevance to southern Chinese surveillance as well.
Its human H5N1 count reaches six
On 27 September Cambodia confirmed its sixth human H5N1 case of 2026, a poultry farmer in Oddar Meanchey province. Hong Kong's health agency counts 11 human cases worldwide this year, against 81 in 2024.
Earlier cases set the pattern. Between 16 February and 17 July Cambodia accounted for four of the seven new global cases that Europe's disease agency recorded, the latest a baby girl in Phnom Penh confirmed on 9 July. Its cases trace to household poultry contact, not the dairy-cattle pathway behind the US outbreak, and its surveillance system catches infections that neighbouring countries are less equipped to detect.
Where was Cambodia's most recent H5N1 case confirmed?
How many H5N1 cases has Cambodia had in 2026?
Is Cambodia's H5N1 the same strain as the US dairy outbreak?
Why does Cambodia have so many bird flu cases?
How dangerous is bird flu for tourists visiting Cambodia?
