Dengue Fever Claims 56 Vietnamese Lives in 2011

Dengue fever is estimated to have affected roughly 65,500 Vietnamese people this year, killing 56 people, the government’s General Statistics Office (GSO) said. The figures include eight deaths out of a total 17,800 dengue fever patients in Nov, the GSO added. Dengue fever results in a high number of fatalities in Vietnam every year, thus the vaccine plays an important role. The average number of such patients is estimated at 25,000-76,000 with 45-111 deaths per year, experts said. Notably, hand-foot-mouth disease is prevalent in all 63 localities with 162 deaths among nearly 106,500 infections so far this year, compared to 14 and 10,500 cases in 2010, respectively. During the year, up to 664 others have contracted typhoid while viral hepatitis and viral encephalitis have affected 9,300 and 995 local people, respectively. The country has also reported 17 deaths among 767 A/H1N1 flu infection cases this year and recorded around 246,000 HIV-caught people so far. (GSO Dec Edition)