Public health

Cambodia and China inked a deal yesterday to build a new communicable disease control facility in the Kingdom for the country to expand its capacity to detect and respond to communicable disease outbreaks, such as Zika and Ebola, in a timely fashion. ...

Health officials have urged people to take care when buying food beyond its use-by date or suspected to be chemically contaminated after more than 60 students in Takeo province became ill from eating noodles. ...

The Cambodian government and UNICEF yesterday released results of a clinical trial on new locally produced food supplements to tackle the country’s persistently dismal malnutrition figures, with at least one of the two products proving effective.   ...

Health officials in Svay Rieng province, which was hit by an outbreak of bird flu (H5N1) early this month, said the virus has been stopped and there was no sign of a continuing outbreak.   ...

Cambodia’s first lady appealed to civil servants and health workers to improve efforts to reduce maternal and child deaths in conjunction with the National Day on Maternal, Newborn and Child Health today. ...

The Health Ministry’s Communicable Disease Control (CDC) department has urged people to be cautious of the spread of hand, food and mouth disease (HFMD) and asked that infants or children displaying symptoms be brought to seek medical treatment immediately. “Especially for children with dangerous symptoms, ...

Authorities are preparing a draft law to make surrogacy legal with a range of protections for the women and babies involved. News of the move emerged yesterday after a meeting between Foreign Minister Prak Sokhonn and newly appointed United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) representative to Cambodia ...

Although infant mortality rates have dropped dramatically over the past 15 years, a new report in the journal Healthcare has identified significant shortcomings in newborn care in Cambodia.   ...

Mobile phone technology could be an effective means to promote improved health practices among Cambodia’s female entertainment workers and help curb the spread of HIV, according to a new study conducted by the organisation KHANA and the Center for Global Health Research at Touro University ...

A toxic culture of masculinity in Cambodia is contributing to the spread of HIV from husbands to wives, according to a study in the American Journal of Men’s Health. ...

Hundreds of chickens and ducks infected with H5N1 bird flu have been culled in Svay Reing province after an outbreak of the virus last week, the first reported cases since November 2015. ...

Marie Stopes International Cambodia said yesterday it will look to strengthening partnerships instead of accepting US federal funds after it forfeited its rights to USAID funding in order to continue providing legal abortion services.This was in response to US President Donald Trump’s executive order issued ...

A new study examining the development of health care in post-conflict societies suggests that the influx of NGOs in Cambodia may have weakened the government health sector. ...

Close to 2,000 chickens from Thailand were confiscated by Pursat provincial authorities after they were found to have been illegally brought into Cambodia. ...

The Ministry of Health has called on all travelers to beware of a new strain of bird flu that is now spreading in South Korea and Japan. In a notice released yesterday, the Health Ministry said the discovery of H5N6, a new strain of the bird ...

Opposition lawmakers have requested Health Minister Mam Bunheng appear at the National Assembly to answer questions over graft, irregularities and poor services within his portfolio, including claims that officials from the National Malaria Centre misappropriated cash from the Global Fund. ...

The ban on surrogate pregnancies announced by the health minister on Monday will remain in place until the government drafts a law protecting Cambodian women giving birth to the children of other parents, an official said on Thursday. ...

The health minister has banned surrogate pregnancy arrangements in the country, putting the brakes on what appeared to be a quickly expanding—if controversial—industry. The move comes just days after the justice minister called for the practice to be outlawed. ...

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 ...

Cambodian betel nut chewers are six times more at risk of contracting potentially malignant oral cancers, according to a new report. The study surveyed 1,634 people in Phnom Penh, Kampot, Kampong Cham, Pursat and Stung Treng and found that 54 percent had oral lesions – white ...

It kills more Cambodians every year than malaria. More than dengue fever. It’s 100 percent preventable, but very little has been done to eradicate it. This year, Cambodia is finally taking on rabies—a killer virus most often transmitted to people through the saliva of biting dogs. A ...

People with disabilities and their families in two Cambodian provinces – Kampong Cham and Tbong Khmum – experience significant psychological distress, endure discrimination and stigma and their rights “re-main largely unrecognised”, a new study has found. ...

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.​ ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen, speaking at the inauguration of a hospital in Phnom Penh yesterday, called on the Ministry of Health, the public and those who have recently travelled abroad to take precautionary measures to prevent Zika from reaching the Kingdom. ...