Social development
Public health
Leprosy patients suffer months with no medical care
After nine months without medical care, the posting of a single doctor to a “leprosy village” in Yangon is only a small consolation for its nearly 200 residents. For months, the villagers depended on donors to provide medicine and on health assistants or volunteers to administer ...
Next step in malaria strategy: paying for it
Following the announcement on 27 January of an ambitious new five-year plan to eliminate malaria in Cambodia, National Centre for Malaria officials and donors met again on 28 January, this time to discuss patching up a $22.8 million budget gap to fund the strategy’s first two years. Financial ...
Vietnam watches out for alarming Zika virus spread
Health officials are monitoring the spread of Zika virus in other countries, saying Vietnam is also at risk. The Preventive Health Department said the virus, which has been linked to brain damage in thousands of infants in Brazil, has not been detected in Vietnam. Keep reading ...
Ministry presents five-year malaria strategy
With concerns mounting over the increasing appearance of drug resistant strains of the disease along the Thai border, an ambitious five-year plan to eliminate the deadly Plasmodium Falciparium malaria parasite in Cambodia was presented on 27 January by the Ministry of Health. The Malaria Elimination Action Framework ...
“Myanmar is still the third-most malnourished country in Southeast Asia"
The United Nations’ World Food Programme (WFP) in Myanmar is facing a funding shortfall of $51 million to meet all the needs till the end of 2016. The organisation, which has a 250-strong staff in the country, says it provided food and cash assistance to ...
Emergency ambulances to make ‘death highway’ less lethal
Myanmar’s notorious “death highway” might become a little less deadly as plans go forward to set up an emergency ambulance service along the route. Hospitals along the Yangon-Nay Pyi Taw-Mandalay Highway are taking part in the scheme. Keep reading ...
Opium poppy farmers reject crop ban, war on drugs
Opium poppy farmers from Myanmar attending an international conference on “prohibited plants” have rejected a ban on growing their crops and urged an end to forced eradication. “We reject prohibition and the war on drugs,” small-scale farmers from 14 countries, including Myanmar, said in a joint ...
Taiwan raises travel notices after Thai case of Zika virus
Taiwan has raised travel notices for five ASEAN nations, including Thailand and the Maldives, after a northern Thai man was hospitalised in Taiwan with a confirmed case of Zika, a mosquito-borne virus. Keep reading ...
Mekong nations build defences against bird flu
The ministries of health of Laos and other countries in the Mekong Region are taking steps to prevent and control avian influenza, or bird flu, over the next two months, in anticipation of a possible outbreak. Bird flu is an infectious disease of birds caused by ...
Ex-manager of ThaiHealth named Thai PBS chief
The Thai Public Broadcasting Service (Thai PBS) has appointed a former manager of Thai Health Promotion Foundation (ThaiHealth) as its new chief. Two-thirds of the nine-member ThaiPBS policy committee voted Krissada Raungarreerat in as the new director-general of Thailand’s first public broadcasting service. The panel had ...
