TB People Cambodia was established in 2022 to help TB victims get help from the non-governmental organization KHANA Cambodia and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
Today, the association’s network has more than 3,000 members, approximately 1,700 men and 1,300 women living in 11 target districts of Phnom Penh and six provinces.
“Community members lack information”
According to Vat Lida, the association aims to reach out to tuberculosis patients and motivate them to seek and receive treatment and care.
“Community members don’t know where to go. They are preoccupied with their daily lives and some patients don’t even know they have TB.”
Before starting the association, the president of TB People Cambodia was a volunteer at a health center as a member of a village health support group. But the group was disbanded and their work fell through. It was this experience that proved to Vat Lida that Cambodians needed information.
“Otherwise, entire communities risk being confronted with this disease.”
Multiple missions
In addition to leading TB People Cambodia, Nhork Kang is the coordinator of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria in Cambodia. According to her, their role is “ to monitor all national tuberculosis-related programmes”.
In addition to meetings with authorities, it holds grassroots meetings across the country to gather information on the situation and identify problems, reporting them to the authorities if necessary.
Objective 2035
The Cambodian government’s goal is to rid the country of tuberculosis by 2035. De facto, the country is no longer on the World Health Organization’s (WHO) global list of 30 countries with a high burden of tuberculosis (2021-2025).
A total of 32,286 TB cases were detected in 2023. “According to the WHO Global Tuberculosis Report 2023, Cambodia had a TB incidence rate of 320 per 100,000 population, while the mortality rate was 23 per 100,000 population in 2022,” said the Cambodian National Commission for Tuberculosis Control (CNLAC).
Courtesy of Cambodianess, which helped translate this article and make it accessible to French-speaking readers.
