Institut Pasteur du Cambodge
Cambodian Pasteur Network laboratory that lab-confirms the country H5N1 human cases.
Last refreshed: 21 July 2026
Background
Institut Pasteur du Cambodge is the Phnom Penh member of the international Pasteur Network, working alongside Cambodia's National Institute of Public Health to laboratory-confirm the country's human H5N1 avian influenza cases. ECDC's week 29 threats report recorded Cambodia contributing four of seven new global human H5N1 cases in the six months to 17 July 2026, most recently a nine-month-old girl in Phnom Penh confirmed on 9 July.
As a national reference laboratory, Institut Pasteur du Cambodge performs the confirmatory sequencing that distinguishes suspected human H5N1 exposure from confirmed infection, working in partnership with the National Institute of Public Health rather than in competition with it. Cambodia has recorded a steady trickle of human H5N1 cases in recent years, generally linked to contact with sick or dead poultry rather than sustained human-to-human transmission.
Cambodia's four new confirmed cases in this reporting window made it the largest single source of new human H5N1 infections globally in the period, against a US case count that held flat at 71 via the CDC's FluView surveillance. That makes Institut Pasteur du Cambodge's diagnostic work disproportionately important to international tracking of the virus's evolution toward humans.