Measles outbreak hits North Vietnam

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Source: http://www.saigon-gpdaily.com.vn/Health/2009/2/68224/

Wednesday, Feb 04, 2009, Posted at: 15:49(GMT+7)
Measles outbreak hits North Vietnam

The northern region is reeling from an unexpected measles epidemic, an official from the National Institute of Infectious and Tropical Diseases said.

Deputy director Dr. Nguyen Hong Ha said on February 3 that since December his institute has admitted more than 340 people with fever and rashes on their skins from Ha Noi and neighboring provinces.

Out of them 147 tested positive for measles, he said. Three of them are on ventilators.

Many of these patients are middle-aged or younger, some are doctors or medical students.

With some developing meningitis and encephalitis, the high rate of complications is worrying medical workers.
By Khanh Nguyen - Translated by Uyen Phuong

 

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Re: Measles outbreak hits North Vietnam

Source: http://www.thanhniennews.com/healthy/?catid=8&newsid=45801


Measles outbreak hits northern region
Vietnam is experiencing its worst measles outbreak in 29 years, health officials have said.

Around 340 people have been diagnosed with the virus over the past month. Most patients are adults from Hanoi or nearby Hoa Binh and Hung Yen provinces.

Nguyen Hong Ha from the National Institute of Tropical and Infectious Diseases in Hanoi said the last severe measles outbreak had occurred in 1982 but most of the patients then were teenagers.

Ha said the adult measles patients admitted to the institute were suffering complications such as meningitis and encephalitis.

Measles is a virus usually contracted during childhood, he said. Symptoms usually include a rash and inflammation of the nose, throat, ears, mouth and bronchi, with adults the most prone to serious complications.

Ha said seven patients, or 2 percent of the total number reported, were in critical condition, compared to the acceptable 0.1 percent ratio.

As of Tuesday, five of the patients were being treated in the institute?s special section.

The other two patients - a doctor from Hoa Binh Province and a student from Hanoi Medical University - have recovered.

Ha warned that the disease was highly infectious, with those who contract the virus likely to experience a fever and aches a couple of days before the rash appears.

The progress of the disease will either stop there or become more critical, he said.

Ha advised patients to seek medical advice to determine whether they had measles. Those with the disease needed to be quarantined to try to contain the outbreak.

Nguyen Tran Hien, head of the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology, said more adults had been succumbing to the disease because they had no immunity.

Hien said for the past few years, Vietnamese authorities could only afford one measles vaccination for children from nine to 11 months of age, not the booster shot recommended at age six.

Reported by Nam Son

 

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Re: Measles outbreak hits North Vietnam

Source: http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn/showarticle.php?num=01HEA050209

Measles outbreak may harm adults
(05-02-2009)

HA NOI ? Adults are becoming more vunerable to measles and the danger of developing serious complications such as encephalitis and meningitis, doctors warned after an outbreak in the Ha Noi region in the first months of the year.

The disease, which is usually associated with children, hit a rash of about 150 adults in Ha Noi and its neighbour provinces in a month with an average of five or six cases being taken to hospital each day, doctors said.

National Hospital for Contagious and Tropical Diseases deputy-director Nguyen Hong Ha yesterday said seven of the cases had developed into more serious problems such as encephalitis and meningitis.

Some patients had become unconscious or suffered disorded perception or needed breathing support from machine.

"The noticeable thing is that children under 15 years old used to be main subject to this disease but these recent cases are 20-30 years old," Ha said.

"And the 2 per cent of those who develop complications is high compared to normally one out of 1,000 cases."

Measles symptoms include a four-day fever with cough, runny nose and red eyes. The fever may reach up to 40 degree Celsius, said Military Hospital doctor Nguyen Thanh Binh.

The characteristic measles rash (erythematous rash) begins on the head several days after the fever starts and spreads to cover most of the body, often causing itching, Dr Binh said.

"So many people don?t pay attention to it and never imagined as an adult they would get measles."

It was one of the reasons they ended up having to be hospitalised.

"At first, I thought I only got cold and then fever as I used to," a third-year Ha Noi Agriculture University student said. "When I became unconscious, my friends took me to the hospital where the doctors told me I had measles."

Many adults contracted the disease despite having had a measles vaccination when they were children, Ha said.

"This means the measles vaccination does not last forever, as expected, but decreases in time.

In the face of the new trend, the hospital has prepared a measles diagnostics and treatment guidance for release to local health departments and centres nationwide.

When the fever was accompanied by a rash, the patients should be checked by a doctor, Ha said. ? VNS