Deputy Director of the municipal Department of Health Dr. Nguyen Huu Hung reported that dengue in the city develops complicatedly and its periodicity changes unpredictably with more outbreaks and year-on-year rise. Some districts such as districts 12, Hoc Mon, Binh Tan have seen doubled increase.
Worse, the disease is likely to spread on a large scale. For instance, statistically, the city’s health sector recorded over 10,000 cases of dengue, a year-on-year rise of 18 percent; in past week, nearly 500 dengue hospitalized cases were reported, an increase of 23 percent compared to four past weeks. There have been three deaths due to dengue since the beginning of the year.
District administrations complained that they have faced difficulties in dengue prevention task; district 12 authority said that it is hard to call for residents’ participation into battle against the disease because the district is so large and most immigrants live in the district, especially in Hiep Thanh Ward which has nearly 100,000 locals, nearly 70 percent of immigrants. Besides, many households keep waste for their business; accordingly, these households become ideal places for mosquitos laying eggs.
Whereas, districts Binh Tan and Binh Chanh have seen rapid rate of urbanization yet locals have low awareness. People throw away waste into the environment including water containers in empty lands.
Deputy Health Minister Thanh Long said that this year, the disease occurs earlier than previous years with more infection cases. Especially, Ho Chi Minh city and Southern provinces have seen more cases of dengue with type 2 virus. Therefore, it is predicted more serious cases in the upcoming time.
To cut infection cases, Mr. Long asked the city’s health sector should increase information of the disease to each household and raise people’s awareness of dengue danger.
The mission team paid unscheduled visit to some “hot spots” in districts Binh Chanh and Binh Tan which have an outbreak infecting 11 people.
