City
officials have issued a warning about the possible spread of meningitis after
workers return to HCM City from their Tet (Lunar New Year) holidays in their
hometowns. The disease has broken out in several industrial parks in the city.
During an urgent meeting with HCM City's
Pasteur Institute on Wednesday, Nguyen Dac Tho, deputy head of the HCM City
Preventive Medicine Department, urged local health agencies to initiate
preventive tasks to control the spread of the disease.
Besides several patients in Districts 7 and 9,
the HCM City Hospital of Tropical Diseases has also reported that a
14-month-old boy from Binh Chanh District has meningitis, and that others in
the community had contracted the disease.
Doctors had no information about the
infectious source for the boy, whose parents work at Le Minh Xuan Industrial
Park in Binh Chanh District. His parents and grandmother tested negative with
the disease.
According to Dr Tran Phu Manh Sieu, head of
the HCM City Preventive Medicine Department, after the first epidemic cluster
was found in Furukawa Company in District 7, the health agency found one person
at a high school in District 9 with the disease.
The HCM City Pasteur Institute tested 51
people who had access to the patient, and of that number, 36 people tested
positive with the bacterium Neisseria meningitidis.
Dr Sieu said the possibility of contagion was
high during Lunar New Year holiday as people were travelling to and from their
hometowns.
If the city's health agencies do not take
precautionary measures, there could be an epidemic, he added.
Symptoms of meningitis include sore throat,
high fever, headache, bellyache and rashes all over the body.
The disease is considered dangerous because
the onset of symptoms is sudden and death can follow within hours.
Le Hoang San, deputy head of HCM City's
Pasteur Institute, said appropriate actions by health officials must be taken
to prevent the spread of the disease.
He said another patient recently tested
positive for the disease in Binh Duong Province.
H5N1 flu virus
During the meeting about the meningitis
warning, San also said that that the H5N1 virus had returned, confirming that
an 18-year-old male in Kien Giang Province had been infected after taking care
of free-range ducks in Hau Giang Province.
Tests at the Pasteur Institute of the boy were
positive. He later died of respiratory failure.
The Preventive Medicine Department said it
would closely supervise those in close contact with patients and those
suspected of having the disease.
It advises people to wash their hands
regularly with soap and use antiseptic mouthwash.
News Desk
Viet Nam News
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