Dengue fever kills 87, infects nearly 60,000 in Vietnam
HANOI - Eighty-seven people have died in Vietnam from mosquito-borne dengue fever since the beginning of the year, an increase of 64 per cent over the same period in 2003, officials said on Thursday. The deaths were among nearly 60,000 reported infections, an 83 per cent rise year-on-year, said Tran Hung, head of the health ministry's epidemiology department.
The worst affected provinces were in the southern Mekong Delta region where moist and humid conditions provide ideal breeding grounds for mosquitoes. The region accounted for more than 95 percent of cases, Hung said. Large outbreaks of the virus, which first appeared in Vietnam in 1969, tend to occur every three or five years, according to health experts, and this year is within the circle of heavy infection.
Experts have also blamed an unusually lengthy spell of hot and humid weather for the increased infection rate. Health authorities have launched clean-up campaigns to eliminate stagnant water to prevent mosquitoes from breeding. They have also set up mobile emergency teams to treat victims.
Characterised by painful joints, fever and a rash, the debilitating symptoms of dengue usually begin within a week of a carrier mosquito's bite and last for seven days. But it also comes in a more deadly hemorrhagic form, often on second infection with another of the four types of dengue virus.
Agence France Presse - October 21, 2004.
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