Disease

Dengue updates for Vietnam and Sri Lanka

Vietnam

The number of dengue fever cases in Vietnam spiked by some 10,000 cases in the past week. Tran Đac Phu, head of the ministry’s preventive medicine department, said the country had recorded 90,626 dengue cases since the beginning of 2017, a year-on-year rise of 67.8 per cent, including 24 fatalities, local media reports.

This is up by about 10,000 since the last total case count was released on Aug. 3. The outbreak is stretching the country’s medical system as more than 78,000 of the cases required hospitalization. In the capital city of Hanoi, there has been 17,027 recorded dengue cases, seven of whom died since the beginning of the year.

Sri Lanka

Since the beginning of the year, Sri Lanka has reported 137,279 suspected dengue cases and more than 300 deaths. Approximately 44.53% of dengue cases were reported from the Western province.

This compares with approximately 39,000 cases reported in January-August 2016 and 55,150 cases during the entire year.