The Disease Detectives Trying to Keep the World Safe From Bird Flu
Published on May 22, 2024
As Dr. Sreyleak Luch drove to work the morning of Feb. 8, through busy sunbaked streets in Cambodia’s Mekong river delta, she played the overnight voice messages from her team. The condition of a 9-year-old boy she had been caring for had deteriorated sharply, and he had been intubated, one doctor reported. What, she wondered, could make the child so sick, so fast?
“And then I just thought: H5N1,” she recalled. “It could be bird flu.”