Mr. Duong Anh Duc, Vice Chairman of Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee speaks at the briefing
This afternoon, Ho Chi Minh City's Steering Committee for Epidemic Prevention and Control held a briefing on epidemic prevention and control in the city under the chairmanship of Mr. Duong Anh Duc, Vice Chairman of Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee.
Speaking at the meeting, Doctor Nguyen Huu Hung, Deputy Director of Ho Chi Minh City Department of Health, said that dengue fever is breaking out in the southern provinces and Ho Chi Minh City with the number of severe cases and deaths continuing to increase in recent days.
Since the beginning of the year, Ho Chi Minh City has recorded 24,941 cases of dengue, up 61 percent over the same period in 2019 with 12 deaths, up seven cases over the same period in 2019. Districts with a high number of cases are District 12, Binh Tan District, Tan Phu District, Binh Chanh outlying district, Hoc Mon outlying district, and Cu Chi suburb. Most of the cases were in the serotype D1, and there was an increase in the serotype D2, corresponding to an increase in the number of severe cases.
It is forecasted that the dengue epidemic in 2022 will break out strongly, the number of cases will increase, and the number of severe cases and deaths will increase if drastic measures are not taken to combat the epidemic right now.
Through supervision at hospitals, for every 100 people who come to infirmaries for examination, 60 people need to be hospitalized with symptoms such as high fever, and unexplained vomiting; Among them, about 20 percent have warning signs, 10 percent have severe signs ad one percent have critical signs, prolonged shock, multi-organ failure.
The Ho Chi Minh City Department of Health has developed a scenario based on the number of hospitalized cases and the number of hospitalizations with severe conditions to assign to hospitals for treatment to avoid overloading, said Dr. Nguyen Huu Hung.
Regarding the sanctioning of violations of epidemic prevention and control according to Decree No. 117/2020 dated September 28, 2020, of the Government on sanctioning of administrative violations in the field of health, Dr. Hung said that from the beginning of the year until now, only 13 districts have proposed to sanction residents who have not destroyed stagnant water storage containers which are breeding sites of dengue mosquitoes meanwhile only Tan Binh District, Tan Phu District, and Tan Phu District, District 4, Go Vap District have issued a sanction on violators.
Speaking at the meeting, Vice Chairman of Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee Duong Anh Duc said that over the past time, together with specialized forces, Ho Chi Minh City has organized many inspection missions in localities on dengue prevention and recording. Inspectors acknowledge local administrators’ efforts in fighting the disease.
For the Covid-19 epidemic, Vice Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee Duong Anh Duc requested that there be high vigilance. In the context that many countries around the world are experiencing a rapid infection with new variants, the southern metropolis does not allow the disease to recur at all costs, so it is necessary to continue the ongoing effort to strengthen the prevention of dengue fever.
According to Vice Chairman of the People's Committee of Ho Chi Minh City Duong Anh Duc, the city needs to increase vaccine coverage and propagate to people the benefits of vaccination. Leaders of organizations ought to take responsibility for outbreaks of the disease in the organization.
The important and most effective measure is to cut off the source of transmission from larvae and mosquitoes. Therefore, all localities and units seriously and drastically carry out sanitation to eliminate breeding places of dengue-spreading mosquitoes in the area. The city is determined not to let occurrence of the risk of epidemic overlapping, citizen, public officials, public employees and the entire machinery of the state must mobilize in the fight against the pandemic, he said.
Worse, recently there has been information about cases of osteonecrosis of the jaw in people who have been infected with Covid-19 and have died. Request the health sector to urgently find out the causes to better treat patients, and protect the health and lives of people, he added.
The vice chairman highly appreciated the health sector for immediately organizing a meeting with experts to analyze, and evaluate the situation to calm down city dwellers.
