ASEAN Dengue Day: HCM CITY – HCM City marks ASEAN Dengue Day

HCM CITY — The HCM City Department of Health last Saturday began a campaign to mark ASEAN Dengue Day on June 15.

The city-level campaign, which will run until the end of June, seeks to raise awareness of dengue and mobilise resources from various stakeholders for the prevention and control of the disease.

It will focus its efforts on the prevention and control of dengue fever by eradicating conditions that enable mosquitoes to breed and killing the insects and destroying their larvae and breeding grounds on a weekly basis.

The campaign would reach out to organisations, businesses and households, and speed up the adoption of measures to prevent and control dengue, Nguyễn Tấn Bỉnh, director of the city Department of Health, said.

Việt Nam ranks third among 30 most highly endemic countries and territories.

Half of hospitalised cases in the country are in the southern region.

Last year 19,500 people were hospitalised with dengue while six died, a year-on-year decrease of 11 per cent, according to the city Preventive Medical Centre.

In the first four months of this year the city reported 3,000 infections, 31 per cent down from the same period last year.

Dengue is a mosquito-borne viral infection that can potentially develop into severe complications characterised by respiratory distress, severe bleeding and organ impairment. —VNS / Viet Nam News / Update: May, 06/2018 – 16:00 /