Vietnam - Hand, foot and mouth not a pandemic: ministry

The number of children contracting hand, foot and mouth disease has risen to nearly 78,000 and the death toll to 137, but the Ministry of Health has yet to designate it as a national pandemic since it “remained under control.”

At a press conference Tuesday, Minister of Health Nguyen Thi Kim Tien said many other countries, like China, South Korea, and Japan too had been affected by the disease but none of them had announced a national pandemic.

Vietnam’s incidence rate was only 1 per 1,000 people, while in Japan and Singapore the rates are 2.5 and 3, she pointed out.

The disease had peaked and was likely to taper off in the following weeks if efforts to control it were strengthened, she said.

The worst-affected localities like Ho Chi Minh City and Dong Nai Province were now seeing the numbers of new patients fall, the Preventive Health Department said.

Last week there had been around 2,900 new cases in the country, 400 higher than a week earlier, but mainly in newly affected localities, the department said.

“We have thus brought the disease under control, but we need to boost our efforts in newly affected areas to prevent its spread,” it added.

Tien urged the media and relevant agencies to educate people, especially women with children aged under five, about the disease and how to prevent it.

Besides keeping the environment clean, regular washing of hands was a key measure to prevent the disease, the ministry said.

The 137 children who had died of the disease comprised mostly of those aged less than three, the ministry reported.

Children aged three to five made up 16 percent, it said, adding male children accounted for 70 percent of all fatalities.

TUOI TRE

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