3,000 RIELS | VOLUME 20, No. 32
monDAY, februaRY 15, 2010
CAMBODIA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD
www.phnompenhpost.com
Ministry confirms cases of cholera by Brooke Lewis and khouth sophak Chakrya
Since then, Korsang has had little communication with authorities. A letter sent this month requesting a meeting with the NACD, which oversees licence approval, has gone unanswered, Bradford said. NACD officials declined to comment when reached by the Post on Sunday, citing the Chinese New Year holiday. In early January, NACD Secretary General Moek Dara told the Post there were no plans to stop Korsang from distributing needles. However, authorities did not issue a new licence when the old one expired on December 31.
THE Ministry of Health has reported that more than 100 Cambodians have tested positive for cholera since November, reversing its initial refusal to confirm the presence of the disease and simultaneously defending its handling of the outbreak. Speaking at a joint press conference held with the World Health Organisation (WHO) on Friday, Minister of Health Mam Bunheng said there had been 128 confirmed cholera cases and one death. About 65 percent of the cases involved children under the age of 15, and the single recorded fatality was an 82-year-old man from Takeo province who died after contracting cholera in January, he said. Dr Nima Asgari, a public health official at the WHO, on Sunday noted that the nation has only four hospitals, all in Phnom Penh, with the correct laboratory facilities required to test for cholera, adding that it would be “almost impossible to estimate the actual number of cases of cholera” nationwide. Prior to Friday, ministry officials had not released any information about cholera cases, drawing criticism from officials at Kantha Bopha Children’s Hospital in Phnom Penh, who said they had been forwarding information on cases of cholera to the government since mid-November. Though doctors at the hospital last week accused the government of not doing enough to publicise the outbreak, Mam Bunheng said his ministry had tried to balance the need to be forthcoming and the need to avoid sowing “panic”. “We have not hidden any cases,” he said, pointing out that cholera cases had been reported in “three or four” Khmer-language newspapers. He said the ministry had refrained from making more
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Happy New Year
A group of dragon dancers performs for Chinese New Year on Street 130 near Sisowath Quay on Sunday. RICK VALENZUELA
No syringe licence for NGO Observers warn of ‘developing’ health crisis with needle programme stalled by IRWIN LOY AND MAY TITTHARA
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LOCAL NGO says some intravenous drug users have resorted to the dangerous practice of sharing needles since its licence to distribute clean needles ended at the beginning of the year, sparking fears that HIV transmission rates among drug users could soar if the situation is left unchecked. Anecdotal evidence collected by Korsang, a harm-reduction NGO that works with drug users, suggests that some of its clients are again sharing needles after authorities failed
to renew its needle and syringe programme (NSP) licence January 1, the organisation said. “There has been no consistent access to sterile injection equipment since our licence was not renewed,” said Holly Bradford, the group’s founder and technical adviser. In interviews with 20 drug users earlier this month, 17 reported that they had started sharing needles since the licence expired, Bradford said. One drug user said he had injected with a needle that six other people had used before him. “They had access to needles and had learned not to share,” said Bradford, calling the situation a “public health crisis”.
“Blood-borne viruses are definitely being transmitted,” she said. “The only way to stop that is to get back in there and make everybody use a new syringe for each injection.”
Tension with authorities Korsang’s needle and syringe licence expired two weeks after tension mounted over a controversial detoxification drug programme that authorities wanted to administer to drugusing clients from Korsang and Mith Samlanh, an NGO that works with street children. Officials with the government’s anti-drugs bureau, the National Authority for Combating Drugs (NACD), had ap-
proached the groups looking for participants, which alarmed rights groups and UN agencies because the drug trial involved a little-known Vietnamese medication, Bong Sen. Both organisations declined, and NACD officials appeared to take offence when Korsang asked its international donors to intervene. “They complained to [international groups], claiming that authorities were forcing them into the trial,” Neak Yuthea, the NACD’s director for legislation, education and rehabilitation, said in an interview last month. “We did not force anyone. There is no reason for us to bring people to die or joke with people’s lives.”