At a meeting of the Ministry of Health and the World Health Organization on October 2 in Hanoi, participants agreed that almost 40 percent of the hospitals in the country are unable to prevent and control infections, which is a serious dilemma.
The meeting was held to discuss implementation of prevention and control of infections in hospitals in the country during the period 2012-2015.
Deputy Health Minister Nguyen Thi Xuyen said that diseases caused by bacteria infections can be serious or even fatal for both patients and medical staffs. This has also caused a lack of trust among patients in medical facilities.
Of the 522 hospitals in the country, only 60 percent have systems to prevent and control infections, said deputy health minister. There exist some problems in the process of prevention and control of infections in hospitals which makes transmission very high.
Some common infections are pneumonia, infections on incisions and urinary tract infections. Most cases of septic shock (approximately 70 percent) are caused by endotoxin-producing gram-negative bacilli.
In related news, the Department of Preventive Medicine announced that in September and the first nine months of the year various diseases developed complicated strains, especially hand-foot-mouth disease and dengue fever, which both reported an increase in deaths.
According to the department, more than 93,000 people have so far been infected with the hand-foot-mouth disease with 41 having succumbed to it, while around 52,000 people in the country caught dengue fever with 42 having died from the disease.
The department fears that infectious cases and deaths will increase in the next few months, which are peak time for spread of diseases.
