July 26, 2001

VN Dengue Epidemic Kills 38 
Agence France-Presse

Hanoi - An epidemic of the mosquito-borne dengue fever has 
claimed 38 lives in Vietnam since the start of the year and left 
more than 14,200 people sick, according to an official toll 
Tuesday.
	The number of dengue cases, which is still mounting in 
several Vietnamese provinces, represents a leap of 74 percent 
over the same period of last year, a health ministry official 
said.
	The outbreak is particularly hitting the Mekong Delta 
region in the south and the central province of Ha Tinh, where 
moist and humid conditions provide ideal breeding grounds for 
mosquitoes.
	Reports here said the Australian government had announced 
$700,000 in aid to help Vietnam tackle the epidemic, which is 
also blamed on an unusual early onset of annual monsoon rains.
	Other Asian nations, notably Thailand with more than 100 
dead and 56,000 cases, have also reported particularly bad dengue 
fever seasons this year.
	The Vietnamese official urged those struck down with the 
fever to seek urgent attention in state hospitals, rather than 
buying medicine themselves on the black market.
	Dengue fever, an infectious disease of African origin which 
first appeared in Vietnam in 1969, killed 380 Vietnamese in 1998 
but only about 50 people in each of 1999 and last year. The 
disease normally breaks out in three-year cycles.