At the meeting held by the Ministry of Health, experts said Vietnam had not recorded emerging dangerous contagious diseases in 2017, however, popular diseases namely dengue, measles, whooping cough, diphtheria, encephalitis developed unpredictably.
Head of the Preventive Health Department Tran Dac Phu said last year only dengue outbreaks infected 183,000 people including 30 deaths while there had been reduction of other diseases.
Over 430 measles patients with one death were reported in the country while 571 kids has whooping cough including three succumbing to the disease last year, he said.
The country maintained its achievement in controlling vaccine-preventable diseases; it has totally eradicate polio and tetanus amongst infants. Significantly, while contagious diseases spread and developed complicatedly in the globe, yet they have not entered Vietnam so far.
Nevertheless, at present, the changeable weather plus people travelling more and mass transportation of poultry in festive season trigger contagious diseases such as bird flu, whooping cough, diphtheria, measles, rubella, diarrhea.
Worse, emerging diseases like influenza A (H7N9), yellow fever and plague are lurking to spread into the country, he added.
He pointed out that the disease prevention task has not been carried out well.
For instance, when outbreaks of dengue re-occurred in Hanoi, People’s Committee implemented drastic preventative measures against the disease yet the authorities did not taken much heeds to prevention mission.
Currently, the immunization coverage rate of 95 percent. Commune administrations especially disadvantaged areas have not managed the number of unvaccinated people, resulting in outbreaks of the disease.
Realizing the complex development of diseases, Health Minister Nguyen Thi Kim Tien said that weather was conducive to development of several kinds of viruses; accordingly, the local governments should pay attention to vaccination task or else the relapse of disease will surely occur.
She pointed out that some localities have high immunization coverage rate while others failed to have coverage rate of diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus and measles as expected. The governments must re-check vaccination rate in the North especially in mountainous regions even in Hanoi and its neighboring provinces.
Ms. Tien concluded that it is time for compulsory vaccination of ten vaccines for kids.
In addition, the Health Minister also warned of the risk of cross –infection in hospitals. Therefore, infirmaries must isolate contagious cases monitoring effectiveness of bacteria contamination in medical clinics.
Ms. Tien noted that hospital managers must pay heed to reducing patient overload. Health Minister Tien stressed kids having normal influenza should be kept at home for treatment in order to curb contamination.
At the online meeting, Director of Pasteur Institute in Ho Chi Minh City Professor Phan Trong Lan emphasized the significance of immunization in prevention of vaccine-preventable diseases.
In these localities with low vaccination rate, it needs to have measures to raise the rate by encouraging parents to take their kids to medical clinics for vaccination periodically.
