CAMBODIA: Worries about long-term flood fallout

More than 1 million people were affected and at least 247 lost their lives due to weeks of heavy flooding in October 2011. In Cambodia, Mekong River water levels continue to rise, resulting in difficulties to gain access to the affected communities in the rural areas (Photo: Brendan Brady/IRIN)

KRATIE PROVINCE, 17 October 2011 (IRIN) - Severe flooding across Cambodia poses serious risks to the country's food security, according to NGOs.

Flooding has spread across 17 of Cambodia's 24 provinces, killing 247 people, forcing the evacuation of more than 34,000 households, and destroying some 200,000 hectares of rice fields, which comprise nearly 10 percent of the country's harvest, according to the National Committee for Disaster Management (NCDM), a government agency.

It said flood damage, including destruction of more than 1,000 schools and some 2,400km of roads, would exceed that caused by devastating floods in 2000, which cost US$161 million in damage.

Leh Smah, 62, said a third of residents in his community, Chhoer Teal Plun Village in Kratie Province in the northeast, had lost large parts or all of their rice harvest.

Doctor Urges Cambodian Smokers to Quit [... except for the one shown in the photo?]

By Nuch Sarita, VOA Khmer
Washington
17 January 2008

As many as 60 percent of urban Cambodians and more than 80 percent of rural villagers smoke, putting them at high risk of lung cancer, a doctor said Thursday.

Though the numbers may be decreasing in recent years thanks to anti-smoking campaigns, many people continue to smoke.

The best way to reduce health risks is to quit smoking, said Dr. Taing Tek Hong, as a guest on “Hello VOA.”

“Smoking cigarettes can cause bronchitis, heart disease, cancer of the mouth,” he said.

Cambodians can find help quitting smoking by using nicotine gum or patches, or through the use of bupropion, available in the brand-name medication Zyban, Taing Tek Hong said.

Bupropion is a commonly used anti-depressant and should be available in Cambodia, he said.

Cambodians should also consider the healthcare costs of smoking, the doctor said.

For example, a non-smoker and smoker who enter the hospital with similar lung problems will undergo different tests—to greater cost for the smoker.

“The symptoms of tuberculosis and lung cancer are very similar,” Taing Tek Hong said. “But if the smoker ends up in the hospital…his treatment will cost more money, because [the hospital] will do a CAT scan, which is expensive.”