Dengue fever patients have overloaded the Ho Chi Minh City Hospital for Tropical Diseases recently, with between 30 and 50 adult patients admitted every day

Ho Chi Minh City doctors have reported an alarming increase in the number of dengue fever cases, up to three times the number of cases usually reported at this time of year.

HCMC Hospital for Tropical Diseases Deputy Director Tran Tinh Hien said the hospital had admitted between 150 and 200 dengue fever patients.

“The hospital receives between 30 and 50 cases a day,” Hien said. “Most patients come from District 2, District 7 and Tan Binh District.”

“The number of cases is double or sometimes triple the number we had at the same time last year,” he said.

Until October this year, the hospital, the city’s main facility for treating dengue patients, had admitted 9,600 dengue cases, 70 percent of which were adults.

Hien said patients of up to 50 year-olds had been admitted. Usually the maximum age for dengue patients was 25, he said.

“Many patients had thought they had just caught a cold that had gotten worse,” he said.

Hien warned patients against treating themselves with medicine from pharmacies, which could prove fatal.

The most extreme symptoms of dengue fever include hemorrhage, loss of consciousness, respiratory failure and abnormal liver, kidney and brain function. So far this year, five adult patients have died died from dengue fever after being hospitalized, he said.

Symptoms of dengue fever, a common disease in developing countries, include a high flu-like fever, skin rashes and severe pain in the head and limbs.

There is no vaccine to protect against dengue infection. The disease is transmitted by daytime-biting mosquitoes and international health organizations recommend people try to avoid being bitten by using insect repellant and wearing long-sleeved shirts and long pants.

The increase in the number of cases has been blamed on this year’s extended rainy season, which usually ends in late October and the increasingly polluted urban environment that has created ideal conditions for mosquitoes to breed.

Reported by Thanh Tung