Adenovirus

Following the increasing number of children infected and hospitalized due to Adenovirus, Associate Professor Tran Minh Dien, Director of the National Children's Hospital, said that testing for Adenovirus must be prescribed by a doctor because many parents required hospitals to conduct rapid tests for the virus.

Many hospitals in Hanoi are receiving a large number of children infected with Adenovirus, especially at the National Children's Hospital, the number of pediatric patients with Adenovirus who have to be hospitalized for treatment has increased dramatically.

The Ministry of Health yesterday sent an official dispatch to the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology (NIHE) and Pasteur Institutes and provincial and municipal health departments on strengthening the prevention of disease caused by the Adenoviruses.

A leader of the health sector in the South-Central Province of Binh Thuan denied the information that the province has eight Adenovirus cases.

In the past week alone, Adenovirus has been detected in 151 cases and six adenovirus-associated deaths in the National Children's Hospital, an increase of nearly 2.2 times compared to the previous week.

The National Children's Hospital yesterday said that up to now, the hospital has recorded more than 1,300 cases of the Adenovirus to the hospital, including 738 inpatients; worse, six kids succumbed to the Adenovirus.

Following the concern of many parents about an enormous increase in the number of children infected with Adenovirus including many deaths, Associate Professor Le Thi Hong Hanh, Director of the Respiratory Center in the Hanoi-based National Children Hospital yesterday said that the center is treating 25 children with pneumonia caused by Adenovirus, and 15 of them are putting on oxygen but they are not too critical.

According to Dr. Nguyen Nguyen Huyen, Head of Medical Examination Department at Kim Chung Campus in the National Hospital for Tropical Diseases, through information from the World Health Organization (WHO) and a number of scientific studies which have not been confirmed yet the exact cause of this mysterious hepatitis, but many scientists doubted that the disease was caused by the Adenovirus.

There has been a surge in illness and development of many infectious diseases amongst children with records of serious cases in long time. According to medical worker, a surge in illness results from immunity debt.

The Ministry of Health today requested departments of health in provinces and cities to monitor acute hepatitis cases of unknown cause and promptly implement preventive measures to minimize the number of cases and deaths.

According to the Ministry of Health, since the beginning of the year, the country has recorded nearly 260,000 cases of dengue fever and 102 deaths are attributed to dengue.

Following the information that cases of acute hepatitis of unknown origin in children have been recorded in some countries around the world, parents were recommended to let their children undergo liver enzyme tests to find the mysterious virus. However, health experts warn that people who impatiently wanted their children to undergo iver enzyme tests while the tests can only detect liver damage and function but not identify the disease.