Foreign and Military Affairs

Cambodia to import new anti-malaria drug from China

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-02-25 14:41

PHNOM PENH: Cambodia is planning to import new anti-malaria drug from China early next year, a senior health official said Thursday.

Duong Socheat, director of National Center for Malaria Control said Cambodia will sign memorandum of understanding in April to buy and import new anti-malaria drug which is called in scientific term as DHA-Piperaquine (DHA-PQP).

He said that if the plan is approved, some 500,000 dozes of DHA- PQP will be imported by early 2011 from China.

He said this new anti-malaria drug is more effective than the current one being used.

According to Duong Socheat, some 280 Cambodians died from malaria last year, a sharp increase from a year earlier that recorded only about 200.

He said the number of infection by the disease was also a big jump from more than 50,000 in 2008 to about 80,000 in 2009.

He blamed the sharp increase of the infections and the deaths by the mosquito-transmitted disease to the early rainfalls and the migration of people to the disease infected areas.

Six of the country's 24 provinces are considered as the areas severely affected by the disease.