Organization
Cambodia Health Committee
The Cambodian Health Committee (CHC) is a nonprofit health organization that has treated tuberculosis and HIV in Cambodia since 1994.[1][2] In Cambodia it is a local nongovernmental organization based in Phnom Penh, run by Cambodians and governed by an independent board.[1][3] Its American partner, Global Health Committee (GHC), is a U.S. 501(c)(3) humanitarian organization that also works under the Cambodian Health Committee name, in Asia and Africa.[2]
History
The Cambodian Health Committee was created in response to Cambodia's severe public health problems. A Cambodian staff member and two Americans founded it, and its first board meeting took place in Pursat Province on March 9, 1994.[1] It is registered with the government of Cambodia and holds tax-exempt status in the United States.[1] From the start it worked in health and in credit, with a focus on tuberculosis (TB), HIV/AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases and the severe poverty of the rural poor.[1][4]
In 2006, working with Cambodia's National Tuberculosis Program, CHC launched the country's national program for multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB), a drug-resistant form of the disease. Treatment at home was a key part of it: each patient had an adherence supporter and a team of nurses, physicians and community health workers, along with a standard second-line drug regimen and food support. In 2011 the program passed to the National Tuberculosis Program's oversight, while CHC kept managing the clinical care.[3] From September 2006 to June 2016, 582 patients began treatment, 288 at home and 294 in hospital. Of the 486 whose outcomes were known, 364 were cured, 10 completed treatment and 77 died. Patients who began treatment at home did about as well as those who began in hospital.[3]
Work
CHC runs services for TB and drug-resistant TB at health facilities and in communities across urban and rural Cambodia.[4] In 2026 the organization reported TB care in 23 of Cambodia's 25 provinces, home to 82 percent of the population, and a TB cure rate of 97 percent.[2] With the partners KHANA, HSD and CATA, it takes part in COMMIT2 (Community Mobilization Initiatives to End Tuberculosis 2), a five-year USAID-funded project from October 2024 to September 2029 that works on TB diagnosis, treatment, prevention, and the stigma around the disease.[4]
Its HIV clinic for children in Cambodia's largest public hospital hosted 85,000 visits between 2009 and 2020. In 2025 it cared for more than 6,200 adults and children with HIV in two rural clinics and an urban clinic in Phnom Penh.[2] The organization credits data from a clinical trial it ran in Cambodia with Cambodian and French colleagues with changing World Health Organization policy toward early HIV treatment for patients with both HIV and TB.[2]
Outside Cambodia, GHC started Ethiopia's countrywide program for drug-resistant TB with the Ethiopian Ministry of Health. By 2026 it had treated more than 3,060 Ethiopians with drug-resistant TB, among them more than 700 children and teenagers, and had helped the national program extend care to more than 8,000 people.[2] Its care, research and advocacy reach from Cambodia and Ethiopia to Harvard Medical School in Boston. Alongside treatment and patient education, it presses for access to TB and AIDS medicines for everyone who needs them.[1]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 CCC Cambodia NGO database, Cambodian Health Committee
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 Cambodian Health Committee (Global Health Committee), home page
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 PubMed, Initiation, scale-up and outcomes of the Cambodian National MDR-TB programme 2006-2016 (2018)
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 BongThom.com, Cambodian Health Committee