Cholera has broken out again in the northern region, the Health Ministry’s Department of Preventive Medicine announced on July 3.

The National Hospital for Tropical Diseases is treating 36 people infected with acute diarrhea, with 18 of them having tested positive for cholera.

The hospital director, Nguyen Van Kinh, revealed that most of the patients are from inner Hanoi. Two patients have suffered kidney failure because they were hospitalized too late, he noted.

According to a recent report, most of the patients with cholera consumed unhygienic cookings.

According to a recent study by the Preventive Health Department and the Central Institute for Epidemiology, the bacterium that has been causing cholera in Vietnam since 2007 is growing more toxic and dangerous.

The current strain of V. cholerae and type O1 is different from that which caused the acute intestinal disease in Vietnam before 2007, adding that the new type has a far longer lifespan in the environment. The current strain in Vietnam is similar to the one that caused a pandemic in Laos, Cambodia and Thailand.

PV