Cambodia: Improving TB Detection and Treatment in Prisons

Doctors Without Borders is expanding medical activities in three prisons in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, to include basic primary health care in addition to providing ongoing tuberculosis (TB) and HIV/AIDS screening and treatment support.

MSF has been working in CC1, CC2, and PJ prisons in Phnom Penh, which collectively contain 25 percent of Cambodia’s total prison population, since February 2010. The priorities have been to improve detection of TB and HIV and provide correct care and treatment for prisoners affected by the diseases during their detention. TB is spread by airborne droplets released when an infected person coughs, so the overcrowded, poorly ventilated and cramped conditions in Cambodian prisons provide ideal conditions for the disease to breed.

Photo: Cambodia 2011 © Christine Wagari/MSF MSF staff supervise TB and HIV screening in CC1 Prison, Phnom Penh, Cambodia