Priority health concerns

Researchers at the Novartis Institute for Tropical Diseases have isolated a new class of drugs that could be used to treat drug-resistant tuberculosis, a disease that affects thousands of Cambodians, according to a report published in the journal Science Translational Medicine last week. The drugs, called indolcarboxamides, work ...

Injecting methamphetamines is on the rise in Cambodia, particularly among younger addicts, as recreational users have begun to switch from smoking and pill-popping to mainlining, a report by the Australian National Council on Drugs suggests. The report, released yesterday, details how amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS) and their ...

As temperatures drop during the cool season, children, infants and the elderly should take extra measures to ward off common seasonal illnesses, officials from the Ministry of Health said on Wednesday. In a press release issued by the Ministry of Health and the World Health Organization’s ...

An investigation by BBC news program Panorama into the misuse of Global Fund aid to Cambodia has claimed that the Fund “watered down” a report released last month, which exposed a network of corruption in Cambodia’s health sector. But Panorama, which obtained a leaked copy of the original ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

Cambodia has been the country regionally worst affected by bird flu in humans this year—with 23 cases compared to just two in Vietnam and none in Thailand—largely due to the difference in poultry farming, an official with the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said ...

The World Health Organization (WHO) is requesting that $15 million be allocated to Cambodia from a new $100 million grant to stop the spread of resistance to the best available drugs currently used to fight malaria. Eva Christophel, the WHO’s regional malaria adviser in Manila, said ...

A two-year-old girl from northwestern Pursat province was confirmed positive for human H5N1 avian influenza after she was admitted to the Jayavarman VII Hospital in Siem Reap province on Oct. 25 with fever, running nose, lethargy, dyspnea, cough and breathing difficulties. She died on Oct.26. This ...

The total number of Cambodian children immunized in the nationwide campaign with measles and rubella vaccines has already reached one million, the Ministry of Health announced Tuesday. Health Minister Mam Bunheng launched the campaign against these two children’s diseases on Oct. 21, aiming to vaccinate all ...

Teenage pregnancies are hindering Cambodia’s development as young mothers are unlikely to finish school and therefore lack job opportunities, government and U.N. officials said at the launch of a global report on adolescent pregnancies on Wednesday. “The Ministry of Women’s Affairs acknowledges that adolescent pregnancies have ...