Patients waiting for examinations at the Paediatrics Hospital in Hanoi. (Photo: VNA)

The ministry said dengue often has a repeating cycle of 4-5 years, and appears in almost all localities across the country, but gets more severe in the southern region. Due to the scarcity of water in some regions, people, especially in rural areas, tend to store water in big jars, providing ideal conditions for striped mosquitoes to develop, the MoH said, adding that bad sanitary and environmental conditions in residential areas are also facilitating the development of the disease.

According to the MoH, there were 88,324 cases of dengue found in 58 provinces and cities in 2015, and 57 deaths from the disease. The outbreak of dengue in 2015, which did not ease up through the early months of 2016 in some provinces and cities, is predicted to continue to grow in an unpredictable pattern in the southern region in the months to come. As of 29 February 2016, there were 16,967 cases of dengue including 7 deaths reported in 39 of 63 provinces in Viet Nam. The cumulative number of cases reported in 2016 is higher than that reported during the same period in 2015 and higher than the median for the same reporting period between 2010 and 2014 (Figure 1). The number of cases reported in February 2016 was 30% lower than that reported in January 2016 whilst the number of deaths increased by 5 (13,086 cases and 2 deaths).

Number of Dengue cases reported by month in 2015 and 2016 and median number of cases by month for 2010-2014, General Department of Preventative Medicine, Ministry of Health, Viet Nam

Tran Duc Phu, head of the ministry's Preventive Health Department, said that seeing the high risk of the return of the disease in rainy season, the MoH has implemented larvae-killing efforts nationwide and positive results have been seen in 55 provinces and cities. The ministry formed eight inspection teams to inspect efforts to combat Zika virus and dengue and provide assistance to localities. Vietnam will respond to the ASEAN Day for fighting dengue fever o­n June 15, with the introduction of measures to fight the disease and the building of prevention plans from central to local levels. The health sector will enhance supervision to detect dengue cases for timely treatment, and hold campaigns to kill larvae and spray areas of high risk to kill mosquitoes. Training classes will be held for preventive health employees, doctors and collaborators.

How to control dengue

The most common control strategy used to date has been a vertical top-down approach using house-to-house inspections, insecticide spraying and treatment of water containers where mosquitoes breed, and community education. Because dengue mosquitoes breed primarily in water containers, it is relatively easy to target these for vector control, particularly through elimination of discarded containers which provide breeding sites for the vector. Dengue control programme has piloted several models for community-based vector control - such as:

·      the use of Mesocyclops (a copepod crustacean) in community-based biological control programmes, Mesocyclops are placed into water containers to eat larvae..

·      providing guppy fish to school children who then place the guppies in water containers at home.

·       establishment of a dengue collaborator networks in hyper-endemic communities.

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