Disease prevention pays dividends
HA NOI (VNS)— Last year was reported a positive year for Viet Nam's preventive healthcare with fewer cases of dangerous and new infectious diseases compared to the previous year.
The latest report from the Ministry of Health's Preventive Medicine Department showed that no cases of cholera or bubonic plague were reported in 2012.
The said diseases usually occur during the summer and dry season in the country when bacteria, rats and fleas are abundant.
Deaths caused by hand-foot-mouth disease decreased 73.5 per cent, while the number of people infected by rubella and meningococcal meningitis also fell by 99.7 and 49.4 per cent respectively over the 2011 figures.
The number of dengue cases fell by 15 per cent while the death rate caused by the disease reduced 24.6 per cent.
The healthcare sector has set up systems to supervise hotspots of hand-foot-mouth disease, cholera and flu. Software to monitor infectious diseases and vaccinations has been piloted in seven cities and provinces.
Head of the Preventive Medicine Department Nguyen Van Binh said that infectious diseases were developing and mutating in many countries including Viet Nam.
Dengue fever, flu, rabies and hand-foot-mouth had the highest rates of infection and death, he said.
In 2013, the healthcare sector would enhance its monitoring of these diseases to limit the potential for epidemics, Binh said, adding that the software monitoring infectious diseases would be applied nationwide to ensure more than 90 per cent of children under the age of one were vaccinated. — VNS