Phnom Penh Hit by Swine Flu

It may not be flu season, but a man is currently being treated at Phnom Penh’s Khmer-Soviet Friendship Hospital for H1N1, also known as swine flu, in the first case of the disease this year. The patient’s brother-in-law, Keut Khim, said he is being kept in isolation, but Ministry of Health officials cautioned that the H1N1 strain of influenza could be spreading around the country.

“It is circulating in Cambodia,” said Dr. Ly Sovann, Ministry of Health spokesman. It is unclear where the patient caught the disease. “I don’t know about how he caught the disease,” said Mr. Khim, “but he used to travel a lot around the country.”

Along with being spread from pigs to humans, H1N1 has become one of the many strains of influenza spread between humans during flu season. After a worldwide outbreak of the disease infected almost 600 people in Cambodia in 2009, Mr. Sovann said that it has become part of the normal seasonal influenza. “After three years it became seasonal influenza, now that most people have immunity,” he said.

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