The southern central province of Khanh Hoa has recorded 3,430 dengue fever cases since the outset of 2016, shooting up 132 percent from a year earlier.

One person died of the mosquito-borne disease during the period, according to the province’s preventive medicine centre.

Medical workers instruct dengue fever prevention measures

The number of new dengue fever patients declined between January and June, compared to the peak last December, but rebounded after that with 154 cases in July and another 200 this month.

If drastic solutions are not taken, the figure will continue to rise in the next two months, and the disease will become an epidemic in November or December, the centre said.

It attributed the spread to unproductive prevention activities and the rainy season – a favourable condition for mosquitoes to develop.

Phase I of a mosquito larva elimination campaign was launched in Khanh Hoa in June and July, and the next phase will be held in September, the centre noted.

A delegation from the Ministry of Health inspected the dengue fever prevention measures in Khanh Hoa on August 22.

Leading the inspection team, Dang Duc Anh, Director of the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology, asked the province to step up communications to raise public awareness, spray anti-mosquito chemicals to timely and thoroughly deal with dengue fever hotbeds, and provide intensive training for local medical workers.

Source: VNA