Public health

A major funder of road safety programs in Cambodia will not be renewing its grant for the country, sparking concerns that traffic deaths in the Kingdom will continue unabated. Bloomberg Philanthropies, run by billionaire Michael Bloomberg, is launching the second part of its Global Road Safety ...

Cambodia’s Ministries of Labour and Tourism on Wednesday jointly launched a new regulation for protecting the occupational safety, health and labour rights of entertainment workers. “The regulation aims to improve working conditions, occupational safety and health rules of entertainment service enterprises, establishments and companies,”said a ...

Cambodia launched its first full-scale public neuroscience centre at Calmette Hospital in the capital yesterday. The $10.8 million, 90-bed Centre De Neurosciences – complete with a neurosurgical ward and research unit – will seek to treat patients regardless of their ability to pay. ...

Approximately 3,000 HIV/AIDS patients in Cambodia die per year, Ieng Mouly, chairman of the National AIDS Authority, said Thursday. According to the official, the Global Fund has granted nearly 149 million U.S. dollars to Cambodia for a four-and-a-half years fight against the disease. ...

Foreign Affairs Minister Hor Namhong addressed the UN’s General Assembly on Monday, in a speech that focused more on the threat of the Islamic State and international conflicts than it did on Cambodian issues. Hor Namhong told the Assembly that Cambodia supports joint international efforts to ...

Municipal officials on Tuesday announced a new initiative to help rehabilitate Phnom Penh’s drug addicts by offering discreet treatment services at local health centers. The initiative will encourage commune-level officials to visit known drug addicts in their community and tell them about the treatment options available at ...

The Chinese government provided 200 sets of ambulances to​ the Cambodian Ministry of Health on Friday to contribute to the development of health sector. Chinese Ambassador to Cambodia Bu Jianguo signed to deliver the ambulances to​ Cambodian Minister of Health Mam Bunheng. ...

As the deadly Ebola virus continues to plague parts of western Africa, Cambodia has since August put in place detection measures at its international airports and border crossings to screen for several diseases. ...

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) on Monday unveiled a five-year Integrated Nutrition, Hygiene and Sanitation project in Cambodia, which is estimated to cost 16 million U.S. dollars, according to a press statement from the U.S. Embassy to Cambodia. ...

Manufacturers of soy and fish sauces should fortify the products with iron in order to improve Cambodians’ health, government officials said yesterday. During a workshop on iron fortification, Sat Samy, secretary of state at the Ministry of Industry and Handicrafts, called on producers to help combat ...

A draft law regulating the purchase and consumption of alcohol in Cambodia will, if passed, set the country’s legal drinking age at 21 years old, according to officials involved with the legislation, which many see as a tool to fight excessive youth drinking and drunken ...

Researchers in Colombia have conducted a promising randomised trial of a vaccine for the dengue virus, a disease that affects thousands of Cambodians every year, according to results published in the September issue of The Lancet. ...

On Thailand’s border with Myanmar, also known as Burma, a malaria research and treatment clinic is stepping up efforts to eliminate a drug-resistant form of the parasite before it spreads abroad. Artemisinin medicines have been highly effective against malaria when used in combination with other drugs. ...

The opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party plans to launch an investigation into organ trafficking in Cambodia following the mysterious case of an alleged kidney ring operating out of a military hospital in Phnom Penh. Mu Sochua, a CNRP lawmaker and head of the newly formed National ...

The two top officials in what was first reported as a kidney-trafficking ring based out of a military hospital, then later dismissed as a “training program”, have returned to work, a doctor employed there said. Lieutenant General Ly Sovan, 54-year-old director of Preah Ket Mealea hospital, ...

Recent flooding has claimed another victim, a child in Kratie province who drowned, bringing the total death toll to 30, Keo Vy, cabinet director at the National Committee for Disaster Management (NCDM), said yesterday. While water levels are declining across the 12 provinces affected by flooding, ...

Defense Minister Tea Banh on Wednesday denied that a kidney transplant training program at the Preah Ket Mealea military hospital is a secret, though he refused to provide details of the program, which police suspected earlier this week of being at the center of an ...

The Ministry of Defense’s account that an alleged kidney trafficking ring at its Preah Ket Mealea military hospital was in fact a fully legal training program in partnership with China’s Defense Ministry was met with questions and confusion Tuesday. A spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in ...

The death toll from lethal floods has climbed to 27, with more than 10,000 families across 12 provinces evacuated from their homes to escape rising floodwaters, according to a report from the National Committee for Disaster Management (NCDM). The report, released yesterday, also shows that almost ...

After a two-month investigation, police were confident enough to arrest and interrogate nine people on Saturday over an alleged kidney trafficking ring at the state-run Preah Ket Mealea military hospital, including its director Ly Sovann, a lieutenant general in the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF). But ...

Police arrested nine people, including Chinese and Vietnamese nationals, on Saturday in connection with a kidney trafficking ring involving the state-run Preah Ket Mealea military hospital, officials said Sunday. Among the nine are the hospital’s director, deputy director and a Chinese professor who was training Cambodian ...

The number of dengue cases in the Kingdom is continuing to dwindle, but health officials noted a spike of rainy season-induced Japanese encephalitis over the weekend. On Saturday alone, 112 children at Kantha Bopha Children’s Hospital were diagnosed with encephalitis – brain-swelling – that was caused ...

A survey has found that while only 12 per cent of young Cambodians smoke cigarettes, more than four times that number are exposed to passive smoke every day, and a broad majority back tougher regulation of tobacco products. Mom Kong, executive director at the Cambodian Movement ...

Cambodia has not seen any case related to the West Africa-hit Ebola virus disease and called for its citizens to take precautionary measures against the virus, said a joint statement released by the Health Ministry and the World Health Organization on Tuesday. ...