PHNOM PENH, Cambodia – Officials of a Cambodian hospital slammed the World Health Organization (WHO) for creating “unnecessary panic” about a previously unidentified disease that has so far killed over 60 children here.
“There’s no need to panic,” Dr Denis Laurent, Biologist and Deputy Director of the Kantha Bopha Children’s Hospital (KBCH) in Phnom Penh told Rappler. Laurent is the assistant of Dr Beat Richner, the founder and head of KBCH who was the first to sound the alarm about the disease.
The WHO has alerted neighboring countries including the Philippines about an "unknown disease" that had killed 52 children in Cambodia.
The Pasteur Institute in Phnom Penh earlier announced that it discovered Enterovirus Type 71 in about two-thirds of patients. The virus is the “perfect explanation” for the deaths, according to the institute’s virology unit head Philippe Buchy who was cited by Bloomberg.
While the Enterovirus 71 was indeed found in a majority of the fatal cases, there are still questions left unanswered, Richner said in a statement released Sunday..
“Unfortunately, WHO gave a declaration on July 2 to [a news agency] without being clear on the facts being presented on June 29 in the Ministry Of Health by Kantha Bopha to all the [health] officials,” Richener said. “WHO was telling the whole world: new mystery killer disease in Cambodia! This was causing unnecessary panic in Cambodia.”
LONG LINE. Parents and children are hoping to avail
of free medical treatment. Photo by Paul John CanaRichener added that the issue is “not alarming."
“In June, 75,799 sick children were treated in our outpatient stations, 16,517 severely sick children were hospitalized, among them 5,534 severe cases of the hemorrhagic dengue fever. Only 34 cases with this…‘new’ disease were hospitalized. This declaration by WHO…was neither professional nor necessary, but causing panic for nothing.”
...According to Laurent, no new fatalities from the disease have been reported since the latest statement issued by the hospital Sunday... http://www.rappler.com/world/8364-no-need-to-panic,-cambodia-says-on-virus
