Bloomberg News
Victims of a disease that’s killed dozens of children in Cambodia were from more than half the country’s provinces, a World Health Organization official said.
The first 57 patients were from 14 of Cambodia’s 24 provinces, with most coming from the southeastern provinces of Kampong Cham, Kampong Speu and Prey Veng, said Joy Rivaca Caminade, a technical officer with WHO’s Regional Office for the Western Pacific in Manila. The Ministry of Health was first alerted to the cases by Kantha Bopha Children’s Hospital in the capital, Phnom Penh, Caminade said in an e-mail today.
Health officials are searching for the cause of the deaths, which may be the result of a combination of different diseases, according to Caminade. Surveillance in the Southeast Asian nation hasn’t picked up anything of this scale in recent years, she said. So far, there is no evidence of clustering of cases that could indicate that it’s spreading from person to person.
Children admitted to the hospital with symptoms including high fever, breathing difficulty and neurological problems saw their respiratory function worsen quickly, Caminade said yesterday. A review of 57 cases found 46 of them died within 24 hours of admission, with the rest suffering the same fate within three days, she said. The stricken children were aged three months to seven years.
The United Nations health agency is working with Cambodia’s health ministry and has offered support and access to international experts in areas such as epidemiology, she said. The WHO is on standby to provide support for clinical management and supplies of medicines if requested.
To contact the reporter on this story: Jason Gale in Singapore at j.gale@bloomberg.net
3 comments:
"But, one doctor worries that drug interactions and incorrect treatments are behind the deterioration of the lungs and untreatable pneumonia, local media reports."
=This is fucken incompetence Cambodian doctors trained by the Vietcong! Shutdown all the fucken clinics that related to the death of any child and hold those doctor deaths that are responsible in the court of law!
@ 1:23 PM, and where do we find doctors to treat people for any other medical conditions??? You are one stupid motherfucker
even in the medical field, diseases of the pediatric and of adult are two different things, that's why they have specialists in those trained fields, really.
the importance of giving meds usually depends the body weight of the patient, you just don't give kids the meds of a 200 lbs adult and vice versa, really. wake up and go back to professional schools, please. stop playing with people's life, really!
Post a Comment