Seven patients in five weeks have gone down with cholera in the Mekong delta province of An Giang, putting the provincial health department on high alert to prevent an epidemic.
"The cholera patients were all from Cambodian provinces that have borders with Viet Nam," said Vo Huy Danh, deputy director of An Giang's Preventive Medicine Centre.
"Cholera could spread fast – if we don't prevent it – as trading in border zones increases with the approach of Tet."
An Phu District hospital director Tran Van Sang said the first cholera patient was a nine-year-old girl named Nit from Takeo Province in Cambodia.
When Nit was hospitalised, she was in cardiovascuar collapse and had extremely low blood pressure.
Two days later, Nit's sister was also hospitalised in the same condition. Three other patients who lived in the same neighbourhood were later hospitalised with cholera.
Family members of the patients said they had used water from the same river to cook and drink and had eaten raw fresh water clams. One hour after eating, they started vomiting continuously and had diarrhoea.
Doctor Sang said the patients with cholera had been taken care of and they were all in good condition. Four had returned home.
Cholera transmission occurs when eating food and drinking water that is contaminated with vibrio cholera from other cholera patients.
An Phu district of An Giang has a border gate with Cambodia where cross-border trading happens frequently, which can cause cholera to spread very fast.
"After the first cholera patient was found we took swift action, including sterilising the districts on the border and distributing cloramin bleach for residents who live in those areas," Danh said.
The province's Health Department also had intensified its inspections of food stands in local markets.
"Samples of the food from some stores was taken for testing but we haven't found the cholera virus yet," Danh said.
Nguyen Huy Nga, head of the Preventive Medicine and Environment Department said there was the fear that cholera could spread widely in the Mekong Delta.
"There are still many people in the Delta who defecate directly into the streams near their homes, which means someone with cholera would put the bacteria into the stream," Nga said.
"Children swim and bathe in the streams so they could be infected."
Nguyen Thi Thanh Tam, head of the department of infectious disease of Can Tho hospital, said no cases of cholera have been found since the beginning of the year in Can Tho, another province in the Mekong Delta.
Tam said cholera could spread very quickly, especially during Tet when people got together to party.
Last year, there were 471 cases of cholera notified in 15 provinces and cities throughout the country. One person in the northern province of Ninh Binh died of the disease.
