How rampant are incidences of child morbidity and mortality in Cambodia?
Cambodia has the highest incidence of child mortality in the WHO Western Pacific Region and that rate is higher than any in the South-East Asia region. Almost half (45.6%) of the nation’s children are malnourished. Again this is among the worst in the region. Read more… Is this situation attributable to failure in health policies– and by consequence a failure in the healthcare system– or is it caused by cultural/traditional practices? The leading causes of childhood illness worldwide are diarrhea, acute respiratory infections, malaria, malnutrition, and measles. These are also the leading causes in Cambodia. Dangerous traditional practices, poor health education, and lack of access to quality health care all contribute, as of course does poverty. Child malnutrition in Cambodia, for example, comes first from poor material health – Vitamin A and iron deficiency, then poor breastfeeding practice – throwing away colstrum and non-exclusive breastfeeding, from weak immunization coverage
