Illustrative image (Source: VNA)Hanoi (VNA) -Communicable diseases from around the world could enter Vietnam and spreadeasily if the country does not improve prevention and control, said Tran Dac Phu,Director of the Ministry of Health’s Preventive Medicine Department.
The health official attended a February 15 meeting on preventive medicine fornorthern provinces, and warned that international trade, tourism and labourexchange, in addition to increased urbanisation, climate change and drugresistance exposed a greater number of people to communicable diseases.
Phu said that Vietnam is still seeing cases of vaccine-preventable diseases,mostly because of the modest vaccination rate in some localities, or poorenvironmental and personal hygiene.
He said that this year, the health sector will continue strengthening regularhealth monitoring at border gates and health centres in order to better detectdiseases, report them promptly, and take action before a disease has the chanceto spread in Vietnam.
Diseases like flu, dengue fever, hand-foot-mouth disease, Japanese encephalitisor Zika will be monitored closely.
The Director of the Preventive Medicine Department also said that this year,the Health Ministry planned to improve Emergency Operations Centres (EOC) atmajor hospitals and Pasteur institutes. Additional EOCs will be built inprovinces nationwide. The centres are expected to connect the health ministryto domestic and international partners in response to public health emergenciesof international concern, preventing them from spreading.
The ministry this year will carry out a project on increasing the capacity ofcommunicable disease testing.
It is also taking measures to increase the vaccination rate to at least 95percent at districts and 90 percent at wards/communes.
An official from the Health Ministry’s Medical Treatment Department Nguyen DucTien said that the department is taking actions to reduce deaths caused bycommunicable diseases.
For example, people with dengue fever are sent to hospitals’ departments ofCommunicable Disease, Pediatrics or Internal Medicine.
Improper treatment and unsafe transfers from hospital to hospital could bereported, and health officers at higher levels would provide feedback with properinstructions.
Tien said that this year, the ministry continues boosting its monitoring andsupport to hospitals, especially private ones in treating dengue fever in thesouthern region.
Every hospital in the south was required to set a group specialising in denguefever.
According to the Ministry of Health’s Preventive Medicine Department, nearly11,880 cases of dengue fever were reported in Vietnam last year, resulting in36 deaths. The number of cases was 19 percent higher than that of 2015, but thenumber of deaths reduced from 54.
Last year also saw more than 45,000 cases of hand-foot-mouth disease, causingone death. The number of cases was a reduction of 19.3 percent compared with2015. The number of deaths reduced from six. The department warns that theperiod from March to May is usually the peak time for hand-foot-mouth disease.In the year so far, 2,100 cases of the disease have been reported in 57 citiesand provinces nationwide.
219 cases of the Zika virus were in Vietnam last year and 13 cases this year.The majority of cases were reported in HCM City.-VNA
VNA
