'Dengue fever cases may be highest in 25 years'

Experts say the dengue fever epidemic this year is quite tense, with the number of cases expected to be the highest in 25 years.

On September 23, at the Conference on Dengue Fever Prevention, Dr. Luong Chan Quang - Pasteur Institute of Ho Chi Minh City said that this year's dengue fever epidemic is only lower than 1998 - the year of the pandemic in Vietnam, due to many reasons.

First, there are unchangeable factors such as climate change - which affects the vector of the disease, the Aedes mosquito, causing many areas that were previously free of dengue fever to now be affected, such as Lam Dong.

In addition, the number of cases increased rapidly due to the impact of travel and trade, in the context of localities normalizing and reopening, creating favorable conditions for pathogens to spread quickly and widely.

In addition, uncontrolled urbanization also causes the disease to spread rapidly. Many water containers are accidentally created in urban areas, with high population density, creating mosquito breeding grounds - a habitat for mosquitoes, leading to dengue fever being extremely difficult to control.

"Our resources for fighting the epidemic are unstable, and there is a lack of investment funds for surveillance. After the end of the national dengue fever prevention program, many localities no longer have funds to monitor the epidemic," said Dr. Quang, adding that many localities only invest "when the epidemic has already occurred, not for proactive prevention." Many places even have no more mosquito-killing chemicals.

Not to mention, the epidemic prevention activities rely entirely on people, while the medical personnel are fluctuating strongly, the community is still subjective and the government has not taken strong measures. After the Covid-19 epidemic, many old staff quit their jobs, the new specialists who took their place did not have much experience in preventing dengue fever, requiring a lot of training time.

According to Dr. Quang, the southern region usually accounts for about 50% of the total number of cases nationwide. This year alone, the number of cases has accounted for 80% of the country, and the "heat" is forecast to not decrease due to the sunny, humid, and rainy climate, favorable for the development of Aedes mosquitoes.

Dengue fever patients are treated at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases in Ho Chi Minh City. Photo:Quynh Tran

Associate Professor Nguyen Vu Trung - Director of Pasteur Institute in Ho Chi Minh City said that the World Health Organization (WHO) has recorded that the rate of new dengue fever cases has increased more than 30 times in the past 50 years. This epidemic is ranked by WHO as one of the 10 global health challenges. It is estimated that about 40% of the world's population lives in areas at risk of dengue fever infection with the rate increasing every day.

Mr. Trung said that dengue fever is caused by four serotypes of the dengue virus. Secondary infection can increase the risk of more severe dengue fever, meaning that subsequent infections often make the patient more severe than the previous infection. However, whether dengue fever becomes more severe or not depends on timely detection, diagnosis, and treatment.

Specifically, according to Associate Professor Nguyen Thanh Hung - Director of Children's Hospital 1 (HCMC), most dengue fever patients have mild progression, but 10-30% become severe. If not detected early and treated promptly, patients will suffer from severe dengue shock syndrome and die. Many people suffer from severe complications such as prolonged shock, massive bleeding, respiratory failure, multiple organ failure, fulminant hepatitis, dengue encephalopathy... In particular, high-risk groups of patients are infants under one year old, obese people, pregnant women, and those with underlying diseases...

Commenting on the challenges in preventing and controlling dengue fever in Vietnam, Dr. Do Thi Hong Hien - WHO representative said that vector control is extremely difficult, forcing us to accept dengue fever as a part of life with the process of urbanization, population growth, socio-economic development... Many countries do very well in prevention and control with a lot of experience but still face epidemics every year, with a major epidemic every few years.

"Vietnam still has many limitations in terms of resources and many difficulties to face. In particular, after nearly 3 years of responding to Covid-19, the system is exhausted and resources are also depleted," said Dr. Hien, emphasizing that "the balance between disease prevention and response in our country is too skewed."

It is expected that in the near future, a team of WHO experts will work in the Southern region to share experiences in fighting the epidemic, especially in areas with high numbers of infections and deaths such as Ho Chi Minh City, Dong Nai, Dong Thap, and Binh Duong.

Since the beginning of the year, Vietnam has recorded more than 211,000 cases of dengue fever, including 87 deaths. Compared to the same period in 2021, the number of cases increased 4.3 times, with 68 deaths. Dengue fever in children is showing signs of outbreak, increasing rapidly and becoming complicated with many severe cases. The epidemic is spreading to the North with an increasing number of new cases and deaths.

Experts believe that vaccines will be the key to solving the problem. However, developing a vaccine to prevent dengue fever is still a big challenge and will take time. The health sector is also looking at new prevention tools, such as releasing Wolbachia-carrying mosquitoes into the community, in addition to traditional measures such as sleeping under mosquito nets, cleaning houses, killing larvae, and spraying chemicals to kill mosquitoes.