KhmerDoctor.com

PHNOM PENH: Dengue fever has killed at least 333 Cambodians this year, most of them children, and many more could die before the rainy season ends next month, senior health officials said on Wednesday. The disease, which killed 116 Cambodians in 2006, has spread across the impoverished nation and infected 31,136 people this year, most of them in the countryside where living conditions are poor and children are vulnerable, they said.

“Their parents do not have enough time to take care of them at home. They are poor, they are away from home to make a living,” said Ngan Chantha, head of the country’s anti-dengue programme.

More could die with the monsoon season, ideal breeding weather for the mosquitoes which carry the disease, not due to fade until the end of September, he said.

A publicity campaign against the disease, including admonitions to clean containers at home every 10 days to ensure mosquitoes cannot breed in them, has borne little fruit.

“The striking issue is villagers do not clean their containers frequently,” said Duong Socheat, director of the National Malaria Centre.

The country’s four-Swiss funded hospitals have appealed for $7 million to fight a disease that reached epidemic proportions in wealthy Singapore as well as striking hard in Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam and Indonesia.

The World Bank, the World Health Organization and the Red Cross have provided pesticide to kill mosquitoes and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) gave $300,000.

Cambodia, whose health care system was devastated in 30 years of civil war, spends about $3 per person on health a year, according to the World Bank.

http://psychservices.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/abstract/58/9/1212 

S. Megan Berthold, Ph.D., L.C.S.W., Eunice C. Wong, Ph.D., Terry L. Schell, Ph.D., Grant N. Marshall, Ph.D., Marc N. Elliott, Ph.D., David Takeuchi, Ph.D. and Katrin Hambarsoomians, M.S.

OBJECTIVE: This study examined U.S. Cambodian refugees’ use of complementary and alternative medicine and Western sources of care for psychiatric problems. Analyses assessed the extent to which complementary and alternative medicine was used in the absence of Western mental health treatment and whether use of complementary and alternative medicine was associated with decreased use of Western services. METHODS: Face-to-face interviews were conducted with a representative sample drawn from the largest Cambodian refugee community in the United States. The sample included 339 persons who met criteria in the past 12 months for posttraumatic stress disorder, major depression, or alcohol use disorder. Respondents described contact with complementary and alternative medicine and Western service providers for psychological problems in the preceding 12 months. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were used. RESULTS: Seventy-two percent of the sample sought Western mental health services, and 34% relied on complementary and alternative medicine in the past year. Seeking complementary and alternative medicine was strongly and positively associated with seeking Western services, contrary to the hypothesis that use of complementary and alternative medicine inhibits seeking Western mental health treatment. CONCLUSIONS: Only a small percentage of Cambodian refugees used complementary and alternative medicine exclusively (5%), and utilization of complementary and alternative medicine was positively associated with seeking Western sources of care for mental health problems. Complementary and alternative medicine use does not appear to be a significant barrier to mental health treatment in this population, contrary to the Surgeon General’s conclusion that Asian Americans’ use of alternative resources may inhibit their utilization of Western mental health care.