Health ministry urges enhanced Zika, dengue fever prevention

Provincial-level People’s Committees were told to direct local efforts to eradicate mosquito larvae and fumigate dengue fever hotspots to prevent the mosquito-borne diseases from spreading, while monitoring all households in affected areas.

They were also asked to collect and send samples from suspected Zika cases to the hygiene and epidemiology institutes or Pasteur institutes in their regions to conduct confirmatory testing, which will help assess the prevalence of Zika in order to take prevention and control measures, according to the Health Ministry.

On May 20, Vietnam’s communicable disease surveillance system recorded a Zika patient in Lien Chieu district, Da Nang city.

This year, more than 26,000 dengue fever cases, including three deaths, have been reported in 58 provinces and centrally-run cities.

Ho Chi Minh City, the southern metropolis, recorded nine new dengue fever hotspots on the first days of the rainy season, the municipal Department of Health said on May 25.

It saw 113 new patients between May 19 and 24, raising the number of dengue fever infections to 6,893 from the outset of 2020. The cases were concentrated in District 3, 6, 9, 11, Binh Thanh and Go Vap.