Public health

More than 100 workers of Shenzhou garment factory in Phnom Penh fainted Thursday, one day after a similar mass fainting at the same factory. The first workers fainted at about 8 a.m., setting off a chain reaction that sent the entire workforce running from the factory ...

More than 200 Cambodian garment workers have been hospitalized after episodes of mass fainting at three factories this week, highlighting problems within an industry that is critical to the kingdom’s fledgling economy. The plants all make clothes for brands such as sportswear giants Puma SE and Adidas. Both ...

Thirty-year-old Sam Hoiy never dreamed her son would have the opportunity to live a life without the cleft lip that has always marred his otherwise delicate features. Hoiy’s seven-month-old son is one of more than 100 Cambodians being treated and screened by a team of ...

In a bustling room at Khmer-Soviet Friendship Hospital in Phnom Penh, doctors from the Philippines, the U.S. and Nigeria gathered Sunday around a young boy, sitting in a plastic chair, and asked him to open his mouth wide. The boy is one of more than 100 ...

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said Friday that the country needed to prepare more measures to curb the spread of H5N1 strain of avian influenza, which broke out the worst last year and this year. “We have done a lot to control the spread of the ...

Small plastic packets filled with a mix of pills of various sizes, shapes and colours sit piled on the counter of a pharmacy in Phnom Penh’s Meanchey district, home to several large garment factories. At 2,000 riel a pop, about 50 cents, these packs are sold ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen has signed a sub-decree to better regulate pharmacies, a business fraught with fake drugs and fake diplomas. The new sub-decree of the Pharmacists’ Code of Ethics contains 71 articles. They ban distribution of fake drugs and the use of titles not ...

In little more than a year, 16 Cambodians are known to have died from the human form of avian influenza H5N1, the highest number of fatalities in the world. Experts have met in Phnom Penh to try to work out why. The latest victim of ...

Many maternal fatalities in Cambodia are not being officially recorded, experts have warned. According to Unicef Cambodia, government figures indicate that the country’s maternal death rate is falling, the Phnom Penh Post reports. ...

Japan provides US$11.5 million in grand aids to Cambodia for the implementation of the Project for Expansion of National Maternal and Child Health Center. ...

An official with the government’s Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) said Tuesday that staff there were specifically instructed not to investigate allegations of large-scale bribery inside the Health Ministry so that the unit could settle the case out of court. On Sunday, ACU chief Om Yentieng told reporters ...

Forty families in Kampong Chhnang province’s Peani commune complained yesterday that a local factory has been polluting their land with toxic liquid waste. Kong Yom, 40, a representative of the 40 families in Krang Ta Ekh village, said yesterday that this is not the first time ...

It is almost four years since the UN General Assembly declared that water was a human right, meaning every person should have access to safe water and basic sanitation, yet 6.3 million Cambodians do not have this basic necessity, UNICEF said to mark World Water ...

A new outbreak of H5N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza has been reported in a village poultry flock. The veterinary authority sent Follow Up Report No.3 dated 21 March to the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE). ...

Health officials from Cambodia and Vietnam met on Monday in an effort to cooperate on avian influenza. ...

Cambodia continues to shoulder a disproportionate percentage of the world’s tuberculosis victims, with a higher prevalence rate of the extremely contagious respiratory disease than anywhere outside of South Africa, according to the World Health Organization. With the assistance of free screenings and free treatment, the Kingdom ...

Reducing absenteeism in schools in developing countries may be as simple as providing students with safe drinking water. A new study indicates that, but researchers are not sure why. The study was done at eight schools in Cambodia where the attendance records of more than 3,500 ...

Villagers emerge from the shade of their homes and gingerly roll up their sleeves, turning their palms upwards to reveal skin braided with dark lesions, ulcers and decaying tissue. They point to houses up and down the street where people have died of symptoms like ...

The Japanese government will sign up to provide 11.7 million U.S. dollars to Cambodia next week to help the country in its health sector development, according to a news statement from the Cambodian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Tuesday. ...

Considered the world’s most valuable fluid, fresh clean water is a commodity that can become a life-and-death issue. Lack of it can also contribute to a child’s absenteeism rate in Cambodia, says a newly released study report by Research Advisor Helen Risebro and Professor Paul Hunter ...

A 2-year-old girl from southwestern Kampot province died of H5N1 human avian influenza on Friday, bringing the number of cases to nine so far this year, said a joint statement from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Cambodian Health Ministry on Monday. ...

Keeping students in school may not be as straightforward as providing them with clean water, but a filtered drinking supply makes them less likely to take sick days, research published on Friday shows. The study, conducted by a UK-based medical school, compared drinking water access in ...

Cambodia’s porous borders are creating one of several headaches for health officials working to minimise outbreaks of avian influenza, officials revealed yesterday at a symposium on emerging infectious diseases in Southeast Asia. The border provinces of Takeo and Kampong Cham have been witness to the highest ...

France’s Institut Pasteur du Cambodge on Tuesday inaugurated a new facility here for a regional research platform in Asia, focusing its research on infectious diseases in the region. Cambodian Health Minister Mam Bunheng, Vincent Deubel, director of the Institut Pasteur du Cambodge, and French Nobel Prize ...