Public health

Thailand is ready to halt imports of prepacked salad products from Australia if salmonella bacteria is detected by Thai food safety officials. Keep reading ...

Striking what they hope will be a death blow against polio, Myanmar health officials are preparing for a nationwide assault. The Supplementary Polio Immunisation Campaign will take place from 20 to 22 February, National Immunisation Day. The campaign will target 4.6 million under-fives, administering both oral ...

Hanoi has targeted reduction in violations of safety regulations for the high-voltage grid by 30 per cent in this year, the municipal Department of Industry and Trade has said. Le Hong Thang, director of the department, who is also deputy head of the city’s steering committee ...

Vientiane authorities are seeking measures to prevent dengue at the initial stages as the disease may return following the severe outbreaks in the country from 2010 to 2013. The authorities held a meeting last week to learn lessons from previous years in controlling the epidemic and ...

Armed Chinese guards are forcing Lao workers in the country’s northern Oudomxay province to labor in banana plantations contaminated with dangerous chemicals, local sources tell RFA’s Lao Service. A chief of the Nongbouadeang village in the province’s Houn district told RFA that 50 Lao workers in ...

The penalties for failing to fasten your seat belt may include a K30,000 fine and a broken neck. The police are not enforcing the first part of the penalty because the necessary by-laws have not yet been approved by parliament. But the second part of the ...

Vietnam’s Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has approved a decree to introduce iodine, iron, zinc and vitamin A as compulsory elements that need to be contained in Vietnamese food. Decree 09/2016/ND-CP on food fortification released last week and to take effect from 15 March this year ...

As many as 6,104 doses of the five-in-one Pentaxim vaccine will be distributed in Hanoi for the second phase of the serviced vaccination programme, beginning on 4 February. Keep reading ...

Cambodia’s drug czar on 1 February described a prison and rehab centre system in which drugs were being sold under the noses of the authorities and suggested police estimates of the number of drug users in Cambodia were “not enough” as he spoke at the Interior ...

After nine months without medical care, the posting of a single doctor to a “leprosy village” in Yangon is only a small consolation for its nearly 200 residents. For months, the villagers depended on donors to provide medicine and on health assistants or volunteers to administer ...