Cambodia

MSF is expanding activities in three prisons in Phnom Penh to include basic primary health care in addition to tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS screening and treatment. 

Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is scaling up its tuberculosis (TB) support in the Cambodian province of Kampong Cham while continuing to help shape the nation’s national TB program.

In early June, world leaders and global health officials gathered at the United Nations for a summit meeting on HIV/AIDS. Among the outcomes was a new treatment target, a plan to get 15 million people living with HIV/AIDS on antiretroviral (ARV) treatment by the year 2015.

In Kampong Cham, a small MSF team is working to improve TB care in the provincial hospital and fill gaps in a national system that is struggling to manage the region's high TB burden.

For patients with advanced HIV, complications from CMV retinitis— most notably blindness—are preventable. However, screening and treatment are out of reach in many places where CMV retinitis is prevalent.

Geneva/Bangkok, December 1, 2007 – Failure to diagnose and treat cytomegalovirus retinitis (CMV) in people with AIDS is leading to unnecessary blindness, according to a paper published today in the journal PLoS Medicine. The authors found in pilot studies that CMV retinitis, which has been dramatically reduced in wealthy countries since the advent of antiretroviral therapy, occurred in 23%, 27%, and 32% of patients with advanced AIDS in Cambodia, Myanmar and Thailand respectively. By training clinicians to screen and taking steps to make the best treatment affordable, the authors argue that CMV diagnosis and treatment can easily be integrated into existing AIDS treatment programs.

There has been a significant decrease in hospital admissions for dengue at Takeo Provincial Hospital in southeast Cambodia, where MSF is providing support along with the ministry of health. An epidemic of the potentially fatal infectious disease affected 15,000 people in the first half of July alone. The drop in admissions is promising, but staff remain vigilant.

West African countries, including Liberia, Guinea, Mauritania, Guinea Bissau, and Burkina Faso, are facing a particularly bad cholera outbreak this year. In most countries, a large number of patients come from the capital cities. MSF, already active in fighting cholera across the region, has sent in more staff and supplies in response to the outbreaks.

In the Southeast Asian country hardest hit by HIV/AIDS, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is battling the disease with life-prolonging antiretroviral medication. But in Cambodia, there are still obstacles that must be overcome before AIDS treatment is available for all.