Public health

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 ...

Two dollars from the sale of every ticket to the Angkor temple complex will go to the Kantha Bopha hospitals in February 2017, according to the Ministry of Economy and Finance yesterday. A letter sent to Dr. Beat Richner, the founder for the Kantha Bopha Children’s ...

The Ministry of Health (MoH) intends to discuss with Dr. Beat Richner the possibility of organizing a test for doctors in private clinics throughout the Kingdom about their professional knowledge, a spokesman confirmed yesterday. ...

The local arm of tobacco giant Japan Tobacco International (JTI), which makes Camel, Winston and Mevius cigarettes, has blasted the Association of the Tobacco Industry of Cambodia (ATIC) for failing to ensure its members adhere to new regulations mandating graphic health warnings on cigarette packages. ...

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. ...

Australia and Cambodia have agreed to enhance cooperation in the health sector, with Australia pledging $36 million for health improvements in the Kingdom. The commitment was made on Monday at the Health Ministry in a meeting between Minister Mam Bun Heng and newly appointed Australian Ambassador ...

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.   ...

The tobacco industry has urged the government to crack down on cigarette smuggling ahead of new laws mandating graphic health warnings, saying failure to do so gave smuggled products a competitive edge. ...

The number of new HIV infections in Cambodia nearly doubled over the past decade—the greatest increase in Asia—while less than a third of Cambodians living with the virus are receiving medication to slow its development, according to a report released this week. ...

A majority of the more than 2,500 children hospitalized by illnesses in the Kantha Bopha hospital network between Sunday and yesterday were critically poor and could not survive without free treatment, Kantha Bopha hospital founder and head Dr. Beat Richner said. ...

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.   ...

The garment industry is the linchpin of Cambodia’s economy, and the single biggest employer of women. Some 500 factories hire almost 500,000 female workers, many of whom are young and have migrated to the city from the countryside. ...

As the government plans to transfer roughly 60 percent of detainees at the notorious Prey Speu detention center to a “mental illness” center in Kandal province, mental health experts expressed doubts this week over the country’s capacity to provide proper care. ...