Public health

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. ...

At the unveiling of the new Japanese-owned Sunrise Hospital in Phnom Penh, Prime Minister Hun Sen said that such tourist-focused medical facilities would boost confidence in visitors and investors to Cambodia. Mr. Hun Sen described the $35 million hospital in Chrouy Changvar district, which on its ...

Takeo provincial authorities yesterday confiscated and destroyed more than 180 kilograms of contaminated prahok from four production sites, according to an official with the Cambodia Import-Export Inspection and Fraud Repression Directorate-General (CAMCONTROL). ...

On the day 55-year-old Leangkim Theng was selected as a village health volunteer, she was not sure she could do it. The work required her to educate women on maternal and newborn health in Serei Sokha village of Kratie province. While she did not feel she ...

The greatest obstacle to increased contraception use in Cambodia isn’t the price of birth control or the social stigma around using it, a new study has found, it is fear of side effects. What’s more, this fear may arise from the many disparate medical systems operating ...

The government of Japan has agreed to provide a $134,526 grant to PH-Japan (PHJ) – a Japanese NGO working to improve Cambodia’s healthcare system – the embassy announced yesterday. According to an embassy press release, PHJ will use the money in Kampong Cham province, focusing on ...

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 ...

Turkish companies looking to expand operations in the Kingdom’s health care industry were among the most visible participants of a trade exposition held in Phnom Penh over the weekend. ...

A team of more than 30 doctors and nurses from Hainan province in China have spent the last four days at Kampong Cham provincial hospital removing cataracts from low-income patients. Kang Baiying, a team member and a Hainan provincial official, said her team had been on ...

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. ...

After reports of 24 more cases of the Zika virus in Singapore, bringing the total to 115 so far, the Ministry of Health has warned Cambodians traveling outside the country – especially pregnant women – to take extra safety precautions and avoid being bitten by ...

Cambodian athletes are being screened for Zika after returning from the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, and health officials will monitor their health for two weeks in order to minimise any possible transmission, an official with the Ministry of Health said yesterday. ...

Poor women in Cambodia are more likely to use long-term reversible forms of birth control, like IUDs or implants, if they receive outside assistance, a new study has found. ...

The research branch of the NGO Khana has argued in a new peer-reviewed study that livelihood programs for people living with HIV – which address recipients’ economic rather than medical needs – could be the key to significant improvements in quality of life for the ...

A new study has predicted that even if Cambodia manages to eradicate so-called “human” strains of malaria by 2025 – a key government goal – it will continue be at “high risk” of infections from a strain of the parasite more typically found in wild ...

On Tuesday, the US government awarded Transcultural Psychosocial Organization Cambodia – the nation’s leading provider in the field of mental healthcare and psychosocial support – with an $894,057 grant that will facilitate mental health therapies and healing methods for the country’s many genocide survivors afflicted ...