Dengue fever is estimated to have affected 9,215 people in Vietnam’s southern economic hub of Ho Chi Minh City in the first nine months of this year, claiming five lives. The figure of infection cases represents an on-year rise of 1.6 times, the Ha Noi Moi newspaper cited statistics by the municipal Preventive Medicine Center as saying. HCM City reported the highest number of dengue fever patients in Aug with more than 250 cases per week. The figure now stands at 150, down 20% from a month earlier thanks to an effective campaign on anti-dengue fever launched by the Center. The HCM City Pasteur Institute earlier said that it will carry out the final phase of clinical tests on a vaccine against dengue fever next moth, adding that after being tested successfully, the vaccine can be used widely in Vietnam in 2014-2015. The vaccine is mean for treating children who are one year old, it added. Dengue fever causes a high number of deaths in Vietnam every year, thus the vaccine plays an important role in reducing them, experts said. Vietnam has reported 32 deaths out of 41,200 people affected by the disease in the nine-month period, including 8,200 sufferers with five deaths in Aug, the government’s General Statistics Office (GSO) said. (Ha Noi Moi – New Hanoi Sept 29 p7)
