Hanoi sees sixth dengue death with 5,000 cases in two weeks

HANOI • Nearly 5,000 additional cases of dengue fever have been detected in Hanoi within the last two weeks, including six fatal ones.

This raises the total number of people contracting dengue fever in the capital to more than 13,200 since early this year.

The sixth patient, who reportedly died on Wednesday at the National Hospital for Tropical Diseases, was a 56-year-old woman. She was hospitalised five days earlier for cardiac arrest and multi-organ failure.

Dengue fever generally mimics flu symptoms and goes away within a week, but some cases can be more serious and require hospitalisation.

The rapid rise in the number of dengue patients has pushed hospitals into overload. The National Hospital for Tropical Diseases on Wednesday had to use its meeting room to set up 20 beds. That morning, 500 people arrived at the hospital for dengue fever examinations.

On why the city has yet to declare a dengue outbreak, Mr Hoang Duc Hanh, deputy director of the city's Health Department, said the aim of declaring an outbreak is to issue information on the disease to the public and obtain funding to control it.

Although Hanoi has not declared an outbreak, all information on the disease has been passed on to residents through the media, Mr Hanh said. The city has also spent 20 billion Vietnamese dong (S$1.2 million) to control the situation.

"We are still carefully considering the situation before making a decision of declaring a dengue fever outbreak," he added.

The Ministry of Health reported that more than 82,000 people have contracted dengue fever around the country this year, with 23 fatalities.

VIET NAM NEWS/ASIA NEWS NETWORK

Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.

A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on August 12, 2017, with the headline Hanoi sees sixth dengue death with 5,000 cases in two weeks. Subscribe