Vietnam Dengue Cases Double to 3,300, Five Killed

Dengue fever has killed at least five people and infected 3,300 others in Vietnam so far this year, doubling the number of infections in the same period last year, a health official said Friday.

Dengue fever has killed at least five people and infected 3,300 others in Vietnam so far this year, doubling the number of infections in the same period last year, a health official said Friday.The disease, which has killed more than 400 people in Indonesia, is found mostly in southern Vietnam with 93 percent of the patients from commerce hub Ho Chi Minh City and surrounding provinces in the Mekong Delta.”The number of infection is a concern,” said Pham Ngoc Dinh, deputy director of the Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology in Hanoi.He said so far Vietnam’s northern region has not been affected, but health officials have been warned about the possible spreading of the virus. There is no vaccine for dengue fever.According to an analysis of infection in Thailand between 1983 and 1997, dengue travels in waves at about 149 km (92 miles) per month and takes about eight months to spread throughout that country.Dengue fever, carried by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, normally strikes Vietnam every year from April, the start of the rainy season.(Source: Reuters Health, March 2004)