Public health

Swiss ambassador to Cambodia Ivo Sieber pledged his country’s continued support of Kantha Bopha Hospital yesterday, mentioning that almost half of the hospital’s funding comes from the Swiss government. The promise was made during Amb. Seiber’s meeting with Foreign Minister Hor Namhong at the Foreign ...

The cause of death of more than 11,000 diseased broiler chickens found dumped in a canal in Kompong Thom province last month has been identified as an infectious virus transmittable to humans, according to the Ministry of Agriculture’s animal health department. ...

Ministry of Health of Cambodia announced that all guardians ought to bring children to vaccinate (Vaccine) preventing inflammation of the encephalitis, meningitis, hepatitis, polio, measles and rubella. The vaccine for infant is for free. ...

Malaria infections in Cambodia and the Greater Mekong sub-region fell overall in 2015, according to health officials. But the continuing spread of drug-resistant parasites that cause the disease remains a major concern for local and international health authorities. ...

The Medical Council of Cambodia and the Ministry of Health are working on a draft law that would force malpractice complaints to go through the council before they make it to a courtroom, an MCC official said yesterday. ...

Health Minister Mam Bunheng responded to the Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) after it received an anonymous complaint that the diet pill MAZETA Slim, which is unlicensed in Cambodia and therefore illegal to sell, is still being distributed by pharmacies around the Kingdom. According to ministry tests, ...

Officials from the National Center for Parasitology, Entomology and Malaria Control (CNM) of the Health Ministry will visit three sites in Phnom Penh today in order to catch and test mosquitoes and larvae for the Zika virus.   ...

An international health NGO has launched a new “crowd-sourcing” surveillance system to be used by the government in monitoring infectious diseases. ...

Eating fortified rice increases the risk of hookworm infections, a study in Cambodian schoolchildren shows, suggesting that the rice’s added nutrients inadvertently help parasites grow. ...

A study of the Kingdom’s district health system has found it “unable to manage” non-communicable diseases such as diabetes and hypertension, which are estimated to be responsible for more than half of adult deaths.    ...

Amid fears that the Zika virus could jump to Southeast Asia after its rapid spread through South America, the Cambodian Ministry of Health has asked citizens to take precautions to avoid mosquito bites. In a press release sent Friday, the ministry urged people to wear ...

Three months after the Health Ministry proclaimed Cambodia measles-free—after tests on a child suspected to be carrying the disease came back negative—it announced on Wednesday that a 7-month-old in Kompong Speu province has contracted the highly contagious virus. It is the first confirmed case in ...

A farm in Kompong Thom province that supplies Thai agro-industry giant Charoen Pokphand (CP) dumped the carcasses of 11,500 diseased chickens into an irrigation canal on Sunday, poisoning the waterway and endangering local livestock, according to officials. ...

A disease expert in Cambodia said on Friday that although the Zika virus—which has recently been linked to birth defects and paralysis in South America—had circulated in Cambodia in the past, there had been no reported cases of the virus here for three years, though ...

Patrick Heuveline sat among villagers in Cambodia, showing them photos of his daughter to establish common ground with a group of people whose culture he had yet to fully understand.Heuveline, a UCLA sociology professor since 2007, has now spent about 15 years studying the effects ...

The Kingdom’s first clinical skills and simulation laboratories were inaugurated yesterday at the University of Health Sciences in Phnom Penh along with computerised exam rooms – part of the public university’s strategic four-year plan launched in 2014. ...

The head of the government’s National Malaria Center said on Tuesday that mefloquine-based malaria drugs began arriving in western Cambodia earlier this month, two years after local and international health experts agreed they were needed to combat the parasite’s growing resistance to other medicines. ...

According to psycologists working in Cambodia, their lack of peers withing the country is a problem that needs to be addressed. The experts believe that to further develop the country, psychology services should be integrated into many of the key sectors including health, social work, ...

The Ministry of Health yesterday launched a nationwide program aimed at holding back the spread of drug-resistant diseases.Microbes are continuing to evolve resistance to drugs at an alarming rate all over the world, often due to the unsupervised and inappropriate use of antimicrobials, health experts ...

A new study by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) has confirmed that resistance is growing to one of the key drugs being used to fight malaria in Cambodia, a situation likely to worsen and which could lead to a growing caseload in the ...

As part of a long-planned project to overhaul the country’s social security system, Prime Minister Hun Sen signed into law yesterday a sub-decree effectively granting health insurance to hundreds of thousands of Cambodian workers. ...

More than 600 villages, home to more than half a million people, have been declared “open-defecation free” as a result of a major program aimed at boosting the number of Cambodians who have access to hygienic toilets, according to Plan International. ...

National Police and National Military Police have been ordered by the Health Ministry to inspect the licenses of all private ambulances, which are often seen fighting for business at the scene of traffic accidents before charging exorbitant prices for their services. ...

More than 1,300 unlicensed medical clinics were shut down in 2015 and the remaining 900 will be closed in 2016, Health Minister Mam Bunheng said on Tuesday, ostensibly putting an end to lax medical standards that have allowed for scandals such as the mass HIV ...