Recorded TB Cases Increasing in Cambodia, Health Officials Report
The number of newly recorded tuberculosis cases in Cambodia has increased by 5% since 2007, with 28,000 cases reported in the last nine months of 2008, Mao Tan Eang -- director of the National Center for Tuberculosis and Leprosy Control -- said recently, the Phnom Penh Post reports. Meanwhile, the number of new drug-resistant cases also is on the rise, in part because patients sometimes receive inappropriate medicines from private clinics or stop treatment altogether, according to Leng Saroeung, who heads the Tuberculosis Department at Ang Roka Hospital in Cambodia's Takeo province.
The reasons behind the increase in TB cases are being debated, with some doctors attributing the rise to a successful campaign to detect people with the disease who would have otherwise not sought treatment. Other doctors say the increase is because the epidemic continues to grow, the Post reports. Eang said, "We are very happy with this number because it follows a new strategy to find more patients. When we find more patients, we can give them medicine and reduce the spread of the disease." He added that Cambodia has a well-equipped medicine warehouse that will support patients for two years, as well as funds to supply medicine for three to four years after that. However, Saroeung said that the increase in the number of new cases makes his department "worried."
Teang Sy Vanna -- deputy director of the Ministry of Health's National Anti-Tuberculosis Center -- said, "We know that the medicines we are using at [the] moment are more effective than those we used before," adding that improved training for health workers on using combination therapies has allowed the country's hospitals to better combat TB (Leakhana/Kunthear, Phnom Penh Post, 12/26/08).
