Quang Ngai Province General Hospital on the central coast has treated more than 1,200 people with the form of conjunctivitis known as red eye in the past week.

Private clinics are also overloaded, with each treating between 100 and 120 cases of red eye since one week ago.

In the provincial capital, also called Quang Ngai, many kindergarten classes are two thirds empty as infected children are forced to stay home until their eyes heal.

“There’s been a dramatic increase in the number of conjunctivitis cases, and it’s because the adenovirus responsible for red eye is thriving in the moist conditions after the floods,” explained chief Doan Van Xiem, head of Quang Ngai General Hospital’s ophthalmology department.

Quang Ngai was one of the provinces worst affected by Typhoon Ketsana, which killed 163 people last month, and a succession of tropical lows since then has caused more flooding.

Red eye is also afflicting the city of Can Tho in the Mekong Delta, as it does to a lesser degree every year.

Chief ophthalmologist Hoang Quang Binh of the Can Tho Eye and Odonto-Stomatology Hospital said this year’s outbreak of red eye had come later and was more widespread than usual, especially in the city’s schools.

Binh’s hospital is handling over 100 fresh cases of conjunctivitis daily, while Can Tho General Hospital reports a tripling in the number of patients with red eye.

Some have been admitted to hospital with inflamed corneas and other complications caused by administering herbal remedies or eye drops without a doctor’s prescription.

Unlike in Quang Ngai and Can Tho, red eye seems to be tapering off in Ho Chi Minh City after running amuck for two weeks, HCMC Ophthalmology Hospital reported on Sunday without giving related statistics.

At one stage, the city’s major eye hospital was treating nearly 500 inpatients and outpatients for the viral disease every day, almost double the normal number.

Diep Huu Thang, head of the hospital’s Cornea Department, said the outbreak was caused by a kind of ultra virus yet to be identified in Vietnam.

Although the cases of red eye are worse and more widespread this year, patients often recover within ten days, said Thang, who blamed the complications he had seen on improper treatment.

Source: Tuoi Tre