Health care policy and administration

Amid reports of the emergence of the Zika virus in Myanmar and the discovery of the first birth defect believed linked to the virus in Vietnam, two researchers with Phnom Penh’s Pasteur Institute have concluded that Cambodia is at high risk of its own Zika ...

Health Minister Mam Bun Heng has issued a directive for all private maternity clinics and hospitals to establish neo-natal intensive care units – which treat seriously ill newborns and premature infants – in order to further reduce maternal and child deaths in the Kingdom.​ ...

The Health Ministry has ordered all provincial health departments to print leaflets about the Zika virus to distribute them throughout the Kingdom. According to a Facebook post on Monday by the Health Ministry’s Communicable Disease Control (CDC) Department, Health Ministry spokesman Ly Sovann said: “All people ...

The Ministry of Health is taking precautionary measures to prevent the transmission of Zika and is asking the public to do the same, as the virus has emerged in other Southeast Asian countries and could make a comeback in the Kingdom. ...

Days after a law went into effect requiring all cigarette packages sold in Cambodia to be plastered with graphic images of the health effects of smoking—blackened lungs and an infant on a respirator—there was little evidence of the new packaging in the capital. ...

Cambodia has the highest rate of untreated cleft lip and palate in infants, out of more than 100 low- and middle-income countries, a new global study has found.   ...

Two measles cases investigated by the government in recent weeks have been confirmed positive, bringing the total number to five this year and causing concern among health officials about a possible outbreak after the World Health Organization declared the country measles-free just last year.   ...

A new treatment designed to stabilize those with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has pro­v­en highly effective and could be used to help the roughly quarter of Cambodians who have the mental illness, according to a new study.   ...

Cambodia’s public health workers are underpaid and poorly trained, with a whopping 98 per cent relying on a second job to supplement their income, according to a recent report. ...

The vast majority of people undergoing treatment for HIV and AIDS in Cambodia reported suffering anxiety, according to a new quality of life survey.   ...

Dengue cases, which can be highly lethal to children, rose phenomenally in the first five months this year and more than doubled compared with the same period last year. ...

The number of dengue fever cases reported during the first 21 weeks of 2016 was double the same period last year and is expected to continue to rise in the coming months.   ...

The director of the Communicable Disease Control (CDC) Department at the Ministry of Health has urged the public to protect themselves from diseases that are easily spread in the upcoming rainy season, including dengue fever, malaria, acute watery diarrohea and influenza. ...

The Council of Ministers approved a draft law last week regulating and controlling organ donations and transplants in response to a World Health Organization (WHO) report which revealed that the lives of patients with non-communicable diseases like hypertension and diabetes could be further endangered following ...

In what appears to be part of a wider push to cut down on smoking in the Kingdom, cigarette companies will have to publish pictorial and text warnings that take up 55 percent of each packet by the end of July, according to the Ministry ...

The Ministry of Health has issued a set of guidelines calling on referral hospitals and health centres to provide increased documentation of their expenses with an aim of introducing more “transparency” to official spending.   ...

The Phnom Penh health department has announced an investigation into the death of a newborn who allegedly choked while being fed by staff at the privately owned VIP Sorphea Maternity Hospital.   ...

Teachers at Toul Mead Primary School in Siem Reap province tell students to bring drinking water from home to keep them hydrated in the scorching heat. But water is increasingly hard to come by as the worst drought in decades drags on.   ...

Malnutrition costs the Cambodian economy an estimated $266 million each year, according to a new report, which urged the government to invest more in tackling the problem.   ...

A quicker diagnosis and a shorter and cheaper course of treatment for multidrug-resistant TB patients in Cambodia could soon be on the horizon.   ...

The first outbreak of H5N1 this year was confirmed in Kampot province on May 10, health officials said yesterday. ...

Cambodia is among 10 countries that achieved accelerated progress in maternal and child health – ahead of comparable countries – by meeting goals to reduce mortality among those population groups, according to a recent cross-country analysis by the WHO.   ...

Although the number of dengue fever cases in Cambodia nearly tripled during the first 17 weeks of 2016 compared to the same period last year, a health official said a vaccine for the mosquito-borne virus still needs to be vetted by the WHO before local ...

Health Ministry officials said that 43 percent of deaths in the Kingdom in 2014 were caused by non-communicable diseases, a figure which is expected to rise. ...