Health
officials in southern Vietnam are concerned about a diphtheria outbreak after
seven people in Binh Phuoc Province were diagnosed with the disease in recent
weeks, with three of them dying.
Binh
Phuoc health officials said the dead patients were aged 12, 18 and 24 and were
from a remote district.
They were
hospitalized on June 24 with high fever and breathing difficulty. The two
younger people were dead by the sixth day while the other survived until July
8.
A source
from the Pasteur Institute in Ho Chi Minh City, which is helping monitor the
situation, said 26 others in the district are developing similar symptoms,
including four who have tested positive for the disease. They are receiving
treatment in HCMC.
Vietnam
provides free vaccination against diphtheria for babies aged a month onwards.
Statistics show that around 90 percent of children in the country are immunized
against the bacterial disease and that it has been contained for years.
But the
deaths in Binh Phuoc once again prove that the situation is not under control
in poor and remote areas. All three dead people belonged to the S’Tieng ethnic
minority group.
In May
and July last year the disease killed at least six people in a poor mountainous
village in Quang Nam Province in the central region. Those were the first
fatalities from the disease in years.
Phuoc
Hiep – Thang Duy
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