VietNamNet Bridge - The number of patients hospitalised with chicken pox in HCM City is expected to increase until May, according to Dr Nguyen Dac Tho, deputy head of the city’s Preventive Medicine Centre.

This was the peak season for the disease, Tho said.

Dr Truong Huu Khanh, head of the Peadiatrics Hospital No1’s Infectious Ward, said that increasing numbers of children had been admitted to the hospital with chicken pox, also known as varicella, for last two weeks. The number of children found with the varicella-zoster virus had increased 150 per cent over last month and would increase further in the coming months, he said.

Most of the children with the chicken pox were those who had not yet been vaccinated or had been vaccinated just once, Khanh said. The normal vaccination protocol for chicken pox is one shot for children under 13 and two shots for those above this age.

The best way to deal with the illness was to go to hospitals or health clinics in the city’s districts and get vaccinated, he said.

Children with chicken pox could suffer from serious complications like pneumonia and meningitis and even die if they were not treated correctly or their resistance was low, Khanh said.

He advised that parents have children with the infection stay at home in order to avoid transmission to other children.

Diarrhoea cases

On Thursday, the city Paediatrics Hospital No2 treated 120 children with diarrhoea, said Dr Pham Thi Ngoc Tuyet, head of its digestive diseases ward.

The ward had been overloaded because of the increase in the number of diarrhoea cases over the last few days, and two to four children had had to share a bed, she said.

Stale and unhygienic cooking was the main reason for the sudden spurt in cases, with many parents storing food several days before the recent Tet (Lunar New Year) holiday, Tuyet said.

Some parents also took their children to stalls that did not maintain proper food safety and hygiene standards, she added.

The hot weather had also played a part, decreasing children’s resistance and spoiling food, she said.

Tuyet advised parents not to take children out to eat and to avoid food stored in the fridge for a long time.

Source: VNS