Public health

The prevalence rate of HIV/AIDS infections in Cambodia has declined to 0.7 percent in 2013, down from 0.8 percent two years ago, a senior government official said Sunday. “According to scientific estimation, in 2013, HIV carrier rate among adults aged between 15 and 49 years is ...

Officials from Svay Rieng’s provincial health department are rounding up expired medications that medical staff and villagers are believed to have pocketed while clearing a stockpile near the provincial hospital on Wednesday, local health officials said yesterday. Provincial medical staff alerted the provincial health department after ...

The battle against landmines could soon have an unlikely new weapon after a pioneering Belgian NGO signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the government on Monday to begin testing teams of sharp-sniffing rodents in Cambodia, with the goal of pitching them into the ongoing ...

Forty-eight Cambodians will graduate today from what is being heralded as the Kingdom’s first speech-therapy training program. The graduates have been trained to fill a void in speech- and language-therapy services for an estimated 536,000 people in Cambodia affected by communication and swallowing disorders, according to ...

A World Bank report highlighting the rate of Cambodian children exposed to second-hand cigarette smoke has bolstered calls to increase tobacco taxes threefold. The World Bank report, which was released on November 20 and titled Risking Your Health, claims nearly 50 per cent of all Cambodians under ...

With the vast majority of rural Cambodians still lacking access to a toilet, and suffering the incumbent health risks, Ministry of Rural Development officials on Monday renewed long-standing intentions to improve the country’s sanitation infrastructure. Just days after World Toilet Day, the officials surveyed villages ...

Four trade unions on Tuesday demanded that Cambodia’s garment and footwear manufacturers raise the minimum wage of their workers and provide them with additional benefits, threatening a nationwide strike and demonstrations if they do not comply. In a joint letter to the Van Sou Ieng, president ...

More than 1,000 people marched to the Kompong Thom provincial referral hospital on Saturday to mark World Diabetes Day and raise awareness of the chronic disease, which affects 3 percent of Cambodians and is increasing due to changing diets. Saturday’s event was organized by Mopotsyo, a ...

n the ponds and rice paddies of the Cambodian countryside, trying to catch frogs can be deadly. Along Cambodia’s rivers, floodlands and lowlands live millions of venomous snakes, 10 species of which can be lethal if you disturb their slumber. Last week, a 13-year-old teenager from Kompong ...

A recent claim by the Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) that a public health officer accused of demanding bribes to manipulate lucrative contracts did nothing wrong contradicts admissions of illegal activity by both the government and the officer himself, according to interviews and email messages reproduced in ...

Cambodia reported 33,770 malaria cases in the first ten months of the year, a drop of 43 percent from 59,670 cases a year earlier, Xinhua news agency reported a health official as saying Saturday. A total of eight patients died during the ten-month period, down 78 ...

The government’s Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) said Friday that it has investigated the public procurements of the National Center for HIV/AIDS, Dermatology and STD Control (NCHADS) and found they were carried out correctly, despite an exhaustive investigation by the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and ...

The Vietnamese Hoang Anh Gia Lai (HAGL) company, the majority shareholder of several economic land concessions in Ratanakkiri province, on Friday rebuffed accusations that it had logged forests and forced evictions, claiming that its activities improved the environment and the livelihoods of locals. Through several companies, ...

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria on Thursday denied reports that its suspension of all contracts with two major mosquito net suppliers found to have bribed Cambodian officials would cause a shortage in the worldwide supply of the critical malaria deterrent, but ...

The Global Alliance for Vaccine and Immunization (GAVI) Board meeting was held here on Thursday to decide which new vaccines will be added to the organization’s portfolio. The two-day meeting brought together 160 people who are representatives of donors and developing countries, civil society organizations, vaccine ...

Though a bit young to be socio-political analysts, Cambodia’s children are major believers in the social value of education, are wary of the negative side effects of alcohol on their communities and place a high priority on honest government, a study released yesterday says. According ...

Tuesday marked World Toilet Day, the annual attempt to push the issue of open defecation back into the spotlight and highlight the preventable illnesses that are caused by what is still a very common practice in Cambodia, which has the lowest toilet coverage in Southeast ...

While Cambodia is often touted as a regional success story in terms of HIV/AIDS prevention, the prevalence of the disease among men who have sex with men, sex workers and intravenous drug users remains a concern, according to a report by UNAIDS released Tuesday. Infections have ...

Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has pledged to help Cambodia with electoral reforms, following a request by Prime Minister Hun Sen to send experts to the country ahead of future polls and amid an ongoing dispute over national elections held more than three months ago. The ...

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria announced Thursday it had suspended contracts with two international suppliers of mosquito nets after uncovering serious financial wrongdoing in Cambodia. The move followed a probe by Global Fund inspectors into claims of corruption at the suppliers, ...

The Cambodian Ministry of Heath (MOH) reported today the confirmation of two additional of human H5N1 avian influenza cases, the 25th and 26th cases of 2013, according to a Joint Press Release from the MOH and the World Health Organization (WHO) dated Nov. 14. According to ...

UK retailer Marks & Spencer (M&S) is trialling a new campaign aimed at helping 14,000 garment workers in Cambodia deal with common health issues, as part of its Plan A ethical programme. The company, which aims to become the world’s most sustainable major retailer by 2015, ...

Fifty people have died from dengue fever in the first 10 months of this year, a decrease of 72 percent on the same period last year when 176 deaths were recorded, the National Center for Parasitology, Entomology and Malaria Control said Monday. Continuing a month-on-month trend, ...

A ten-year-old boy died of bird flu on Saturday, bringing the death toll of the fatal disease to 13 in Cambodia so far this year, a World Health Organization (WHO) official said. “We regret to announce that the boy passed away in Kantha Bopha Hospital this ...