Public health
Pharmaceuticals
How is medicine distributed in Vietnam?
The value of the medicine market in Vietnam was over $4 billion in 2015, while revenue is expected reach $10 billion by 2020. Nguyen Minh Hoang, a Grab taxi driver, felt dizzy and drove the car to a drugstore, got the medicine, paid and left. ...
Antibiotics prescribed ‘blindly’, doctors admit
Cambodian physicians, by their own admission, routinely prescribe antibiotics “inappropriately” based on habit and poor hygiene rather than evidence of an infection, a new study has found. The article, published by peer-reviewed science site BioMed Central last week, included research gleaned from focus group discussions ...
Indian pills fuel drug boom in Myanmar
Five years ago, when cold pills first trickled across Myanmar’s untamed border with India, many local officials were baffled. Where was this medicine going, and why were smugglers so interested in it? Today, the cross-border trickle has become a torrent and everyone knows why the Indian-made ...
WHO warns of fake drugs
Beware of fake hepatitis medication. The World Health Organization has warned hepatitis C patients that counterfeit medications are being sold in Myanmar. Drugs branded as “Ledso” and “Dakavir” are fakes, according to an alert put out by the WHO. Keep reading ...
Antimicrobial program begins
The Ministry of Health on 11 January 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 ...
Unprescribed antibiotics is available anywhere in Vietnam: survey
A survey by the health ministry has found that misuse of antibiotics is rampant, with most pharmacies not requiring prescriptions to sell them. The ministry’s Examination and Treatment Department said 98 percent of drugstores in urban areas and 91 percent in rural areas sell antibiotics without ...
Overuse of antibiotics killing Thais at high rate
Up to 38,000 Thais could be dying from antibiotic-resistant bacteria annually because of overprescription and the prevalence of the drugs in food and the water supply, research has found. Drug System Monitoring Mechanism Development Centre manager Niyada Kiatying-Angsulee said her research found Thailand had a worryingly high ...
Lao officials warn about overuse of antibiotics
It is estimated that 90 percent of private hospitals and medical clinics in Laos give too much antibiotics to their patients because they lack training in prescribing antibiotics. However this carries many risks. Director General of the Health Care Department under the Ministry of Health, Associate Prof. ...
