Photo: vietnamplus.vn

PANO – The Ministry of Health hosted a meeting on June 15th in Hanoi in response to the ASEAN Day against Dengue Fever.

Addressing the event, Deputy Health Minister Nguyen Thanh Long underlined that dengue fever, transmitted through mosquitoes, is one of the world's fastest wide-spreading diseases. Over the last 50 years, the number of dengue fever cases increased by 30 times and the disease could be found in more than 100 countries and territories worldwide. According to the World Health Organization, annually between 50-100 million dengue fever cases were reported and 200,000 people died of the disease.

In Vietnam, the dengue fever has been spreading to three fourths of provinces and cities across the country. In spite of great efforts in prevention and fighting, about 100,000 local people were hospitalized and 100 out of them died due to the disease, especially children.

In the mean time, there have no approved vaccines for the dengue virus yet and the only way to protect ourselves is avoid mosquito bites and the Governments should disseminate and raise people’s awareness of the disease and encourage them to clean up their houses and surrounding environment .

Translated by Van Hieu