Monday, February 08, 2010

Diarrhea deaths lead to hygiene campaign in Cambodia

PHNOM PENH, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- The Ministry of Health has launched a nationwide sanitation and hygiene awareness campaign following a series of deaths across the country caused by diarrhea, local media reported on Monday.

Ly Sovann, deputy director of the ministry's Communicable Diseases Control Department, said that as part of the campaign, which began on Saturday, officials had been stationed on the ground in every province to treat cases of diarrhea.

He said that diarrhea is of particular concern during the dry season because people are driven to drink unsanitary water.

"We are concerned about diarrhea this month, and for this campaign we have scattered expert officers to all 24 provinces in Cambodia," he was quoted by the Phnom Penh Post as saying.

A 11-year-old boy in Ratanakkiri province died after a bout of diarrhea last Thursday, and another person died of diarrhea the following day, said Pon Pun, the chief of Lonk Khon commune in Borkeo district, where the deaths occurred.

A series of reports of diarrhea and suspected cholera cases have recently sprung up in Prey Veng, Takeo and Kandal provinces, the newspaper reported.

Ly Sovann said authorities were also concerned about a potential cholera outbreak, but he said he could not confirm whether any cases had been detected, and he also could not provide specific information on the number of diarrhea cases reported nationwide.

The World Health Organization country representative Pieter Van Maaren said he also did not have data on the total number of diarrhea cases, but he said that outbreaks during the dry season were common.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

"He(Ly Sovann) said that diarrhea is of particular concern during the dry season because people are driven to drink unsanitary water."

=This is to show that Cambodian sewage system and water supply system are still underdeveloped and light year behind other countries in the region! It is about time that Hun Sen government starts thinking about modernize Cambodian sewage and water system to accommodate future Cambodian population growth!

Anonymous said...

Telling ah youn stop pollute the up stream water in Se San(Rattanak kiri) then the disease not gonna spread all over the country.

Anonymous said...

"=This is to show that Cambodian sewage system and water supply system are still underdeveloped and light year behind other countries in the region!1" '


Come to Cambodia dude before you make another comment!

We do not have what you said:

Sewage system?
Water supply system?

We have only rain and rivers,they do the job fine for 1000 000s of years for what's you said and populkation controled too!

Hope it will finish the evils so claimed to be leader soon in bad population controle ( extermination by nature)

What'sy

Anonymous said...

sometimes simply practice hand washing and cooking your food well can stop or prevent anyone from getting diahhrea and illness like bacterial infection and so forth.

Anonymous said...

don't eat left overs! hot soup is better.