PHNOM PENH: The Health Ministry has issued a warning about a traditional healer who claims to be able to cure leukaemia.
According to the Phnom Penh Post, the "Khmer healer" operates in the Svay Rieng province's Svay Chrum district.
The ministry has since dismissed his claims as a lie though there are patients and relatives who back him.
The ministry rejected the false information posted on Facebook, which claimed he could 100 per cent cure a person of leukaemia by drawing blood with a needle.
In a press release, the ministry stated that treating leukaemia required scientific and technical procedures by a qualified doctor, not by traditional treatment un- recognised by the ministry.
The ministry urged citizens not to believe the false advertising as it could cause deadly infections like HIV, hepatitis B and hepatitis C, which can be transmitted to others unknowingly. It urged the Svay Rieng provincial authorities to take strict and drastic action against the healer.
Provincial Health Department director Ke Ratha said the authorities confiscated evidence and materials used by the healer to treat the disease on Saturday.
"His treatment carries a high risk of infectious diseases. So we cannot allow him to continue.
"At first, we saw him using traditional medicine for small procedures, but later he started doing large-scale procedures without permission or recognition of professionals," Ratha said.
Reached by the Post for comment, the healer's son said his father, Huot Chhoeun, had been treating leukaemia for more than 30 years. He said people in Svay Rieng and other provinces often came to his father for treatment and most patients were completely cured.
He said his father used traditional Khmer herbs ground into small packages for the patients to mix with warm water to drink after his father used a needle to squeeze out the bad blood.
"My father's treatment was completely convincing, there was no lie.
"My father probably temporarily stopped treatment for leukaemia because the authorities and medical officials banned it.
"We do not dare oppose them. If they tell us to stop, we stop."