Vietnamplus

The Ministry of Health (MoH) has added chickenpox, mumps and rubella to the list of infectious diseases capable of rapid transmission and potentially fatal.

The capital city of Hanoi recorded additional 232 dengue fever cases from July 22-28, up 63 cases from the previous week, reported the municipal Health Department on July 29.

Disease prevention and control is the main duty of the health sector this year, thus the sector will actively conduct preventive measures and provide vaccinations in high-risk areas.

In the next school year, any student in Hanoi who has not had their vaccinations must be immunised to prevent diseases.

Hanoi recorded 1,193 cases of measles since the beginning of this year, however, there has been no death from this disease, according to the city's health authorities.

Immunisation is one of the most important measures to protect the community from life-threatening and popular contagious diseases, said Deputy Minister of Health Truong Quoc Cuong.

As many as 2,000 cases of measles, including two deaths, have been recorded nationwide so far this year, according to the Preventive Medicine Department under the Ministry of Health.

Ho Chi Minh City recorded 3,316 scarlet fever cases suspected of infecting measles in the first three months of 2019, according to the city’s Preventive Medicine Centre.

The number of people hospitalised in Ho Chi Minh City with contagious diseases this year has sharply increased compared with the same period a year ago, according to the city’s Preventive Medicine Centre.

Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam urged medical facilities nationwide to step up preventive health care services and ensure adequate vaccines to prevent the spread of epidemics such as measles and dengue fever.

According to the cycle of measles outbreaks, after 4-5 years, measles will recur on a large scale. Especially, in 2018, the number of measles cases has increased more than in 2017.

The ninth International Congress of the Asia-Pacific Society of Infection Control (APSIC) opened in the central city of Da Nang on March 20.

The Ministry of Health in collaboration with the US Consulate General in Vietnam inaugurated the Public Health Emergency Operation Centre (EOC) in the central province of Khanh Hoa on March 15.

Minister of Health Nguyen Thi Kim Tien on March 9 inspected the prevention of measles in Ho Chi Minh City as there has been an unusually high number of cases recorded in the southern city since the end of 2018.

New cases of communicable diseases in Ho Chi Minh City have gradually declined, but the figure stayed at a high level, said the municipal Preventive Medicine Centre.

The rate of children vaccinated against measles in Ho Chi Minh City is now at 76.2 percent, well below the recommended level of 90 percent plus.

Nearly 90 percent of measles cases reported in Vietnam can be traced to people who were either not vaccinated against the highly contagious virus, received no full vaccinations or had unknown vaccination status.

More Philippine children are contracting measles, while the disease has yet to be put under control, according to the country’s Department of Health (DOH).

The number of dengue fever cases in Ho Chi Minh City in the first seven weeks of 2019 surged by nearly 250 percent over the same period last year, reported the city’s Preventive Medicine Centre.

Measles has been reported in 43 out of 64 provinces and cities nationwide with 664 patients since early this month, particularly in the south, according to the Ministry of Health.