Dengue fever strikes down over 1,700 in Vietnam
Vietnam's health ministry says over 1,700 people have been infected with dengue fever in the first two months of this year, a 66 percent rise over the same period in 2002.
Of the reported cases, three people died from the fever.
The worst affected provinces were in the southern Mekong Delta region, where moist and humid conditions provide ideal breeding grounds for mosquitoes.
Professor Hoang Thuy Long, head of the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology, says the higher infection rates were the result of unpredictable weather patterns on the mosquito population.
The World Health Organisation says 383 people died in the last major epidemic in 1998, which infected more than 230- thousand people.
ABC Radio Australia News - March 12, 2003.
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