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Staff of the Center for Disease Control of Ho Chi Minh City inspect dengue fever prevention and control works in Binh Tan District. |
The Ho Chi Minh City Department of Health yesterday reported that the city recorded a significant surge in infectious cases of both hand-foot-mouth disease and dengue fever in June.
Particularly, in June only, the city recorded 758 dengue cases, rising to 8,519 cases in total in the first six months of 2023, down 61.5 percent over the same period in 2022.
In the first six months of the year, the number of disease-hit areas has decreased by 62 percent compared to the same period last year.
According to the year-round disease progression in Ho Chi Minh City, the peak time of dengue fever tends to increase in the 24th week of the year and last until October every year.
Regarding the hand-foot-mouth disease, in the last month alone, the city had 2,690 cases, including 569 inpatients and 2,121 outpatients. Of the inpatients, 118 severe cases are children under six years old. Nearly 76 percent of infectious cases have been transferred from other localities.
At the moment, no death has been recorded in Ho Chi Minh City due to the disease outbreak.
The number of infectious cases in June is much higher than in previous months from January to May.
In the first six months of 2023, the total number of hand-foot-mouth cases was 4,500, down 47 percent over the same period in 2022.
Although the number of infectious cases was lower than in the same period last year, enterovirus (EV71) can result in many deaths and is the major causative agent of hand-foot-mouth disease outbreaks in 2011 and 2018.
The health sector predicted that the number of cases and severe infections would continue to increase in the upcoming weeks and may last for a long time if there are no drastic preventive measures.
