Priority health concerns
Malaria
Researchers attack Mekong malaria superbug on multiple fronts
Medical researchers are inching their way across the fringes of five Southeast Asian countries to test a triple combination therapy of antimalarial drugs. Results from the trial, being conducted in rural corners of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam, are due by mid-2018, according to ...
MARWAAN MACAN-MARKAR
Drug-resistant malaria is spreading, but experts clash over its global risk
In what scientists call a “sinister development,” a malaria parasite resistant to a widely used drug combination is on the march in Southeast Asia. It has rapidly made its way in an arc from western Cambodia, through northeastern Thailand, to southern Laos; now it has ...
Leslie Roberts
Spread of malaria resistance spurs debate on fighting disease
News that resistance to artemisinin combination drugs – the frontline response against malaria – is spreading has spurred debate on whether a new approach is needed to counter the disease and other serious threats to human health. Artemisinin drug-resistant P falciparum C580Y mutant malaria parasites have now ...
Jim Pollard
Dengue cases plunge
Only 510 cases of dengue fever were reported in the first three months of this year, a drop of 62 percent compared with the same period last year. A National Centre for Parasitology, Entomology and Malaria Control report said the incidence was 3.1 out of 100,000 ...
How the residents of Cambodia’s ‘HIV village’ are coping more than two years on
On the outskirts of Cambodia’s Battambang province, down a broken dirt road bleached white by the sun, Prum Ly is waiting within the walls of her hut to die. Outside in the afternoon heat, half-starved chickens scrabble in the dirt, stripped to the skin by ...
City supports voluntary blood donations amid debate on draft law
While a pending draft law would require all Vietnamese to donate blood at least once a year, HCM City has set a target to have at least 220,000 citizens donate blood voluntarily this year. The city authority also targets having at least 94 per cent ...
On the front lines of malaria elimination
Rural health centres throughout the country are leading the fight against the scourge of drug-resistant malaria. Can international organizations, local health officials and the government unite before the parasite spreads? Amid the sugar cane plantations and rice paddies of Kampong Speu, the Oral district health ...
Climate change triggers new diseases in Vietnam
Scientists have found connections between climate change and the appearance of new diseases, especially vector borne diseases, including dengue fever and malaria. Vietnam is among five countries in the world to suffer the most from climate change. According to the Central Steering Committee on Fighting and ...
PSI provides US$2.4 million to fight malaria
Population Services International to Laos has agreed to provide over US$2.4 million for fiscal year 2017-2018 to strengthen the private health sector’s capacity to combat malaria. A signing ceremony for the agreement was held on December 20 between the Director General of the Communicable Disease Control ...
Thailand issues malaria warning during peak tourist season
Thailand’s disease control department on December 8 issued a warning for malaria for those planning to take trips or camp out in the country’s forests during the current peak tourist season. “Malaria-carrying mosquitoes are commonly found in forests bordering Myanmar, particularly in Kanchanaburi province”, Dr Vichan ...