Officials roll up sleeves to test eggs nationwide

Eggs are processed and packaged at HCMC’s Ba Huan Company. Health agencies and businesses have been mobilized to test eggs for melamine after the chemical was detected last Saturday in eggs imported from China to Hong Kong.

Teams of officials from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD), the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Trade and Industry will cull egg and animal feed samples at poultry breeding farms in Hanoi for tests today, according to Nguyen Cong Khan, head of the Health Ministry’s Food Safety and Hygiene Office. The MARD’s team will cooperate with the office to test eggs in northern Lang Son Province and those from local farms, Nguyen Nhu Tiep, a food quality control official from the ministry, said. In Ho Chi Minh City, the local office of the Animal Health Bureau also started testing eggs in the city for melamine Wednesday, bureau head Bui Quang Anh said. After a Chinese dried egg powder brand was found by the World Health Organization to be contaminated, Khan said the food safety office is rushing to investigate whether all dried egg powder products have been certified as safe for consumption. Meanwhile, egg distributors countrywide are striving to prove that their products are safe. Pham Thi Huan, director of Ba Huan Company in HCMC, said egg consumption in the city has dropped by 10 percent though prices remain unchanged. The company, which sells 50 percent of its eggs to the city’s supermarkets, has sent egg samples for testing as ordered by the city’s Animal Health Office and Health Department, Huan said, adding that the results will be announced in several days. “I believe our products are not tainted with melamine because the whole process from farming to consumption is localized and monitored carefully,” she said. A representative from CP Vietnam has also guaranteed the safety of its eggs, promising to have the results of tests released soon. Truong Thi Kim Chau, deputy head of HCMC Animal Health Office, said all tests thus far at poultry farms haven’t revealed any melamine contamination. “Consumers shouldn’t worry about buying eggs from well-known supermarkets and retailers,” Chau said. Ba Huan, CP Vietnam and Vinh Thanh Dat are three prominent suppliers of eggs to Big C and Co.opMart supermarkets and they are regularly required by the chains to ascertain the quality and safety of their products. Reported by Thanh Nien staff

Melamine discovered in animal feed

A housewife chooses eggs at a market in Hanoi. Worries about melamine-tainted eggs follow last month’s melamine milk scandal. Tests on 240 tons of fish meal imported to Vietnam from China has found traces of the toxic industrial chemical melamine but the exporter of the suspect goods is unknown, health authorities said Thursday.

The melamine-tainted fish meal, used to make animal feed, was imported in June and July the Ho Chi Minh City’s Bureau of Quality Management and Fisheries Resources Protection said. The consignments, licensed by Chinese authorities, contained a melamine concentration of 0.59 percent to 2.24 percent. Vietnam has no regulations that set a safe level of melamine concentration. The HCMC bureau said Thursday it had asked for instructions from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development on how to handle the melamine-tainted products, which have been isolated pending further action. It would be difficult to return the goods to China as the identity of two Chinese exporting companies were unknown, the bureau admitted Thursday. Earlier, the HCMC Department of Science and Technology discovered 80 out of 400 samples of animal feed materials were contaminated with melamine. Further tests are underway, authorities said. Melamine, used to make plastics, can appear to boost the protein content of food. Vietnamese authorities on Wednesday began to test eggs for melamine after melamine-tainted eggs were discovered in Hong Kong on October 26. Eggs have been pulled off shelves in Hong Kong and China as fears grow that a melamine-tainted milk scandal, which has left four babies dead and more than 53,000 others ill in China, has spread to other foods, AFP reported. Overland trade under scrutiny A task force from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development will today begin inspecting eggs on sale at markets in the northern province of Lang Son, which borders China. The task force will expand their investigation into other border provinces and keep in close touch with local agencies to monitor the trade of any eggs brought into Vietnam overland from China. Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Cao Duc Phat has threatened tough action against companies found using melamine-tainted materials to make animal feed. Health experts have shrugged off fears that domestic eggs could be contaminated with melamine. Only eggs of unclear origins or imported overland from China were likely to be poisoned, the experts said. They also said it was unlikely eggs could be directly tainted with melamine. The melamine contamination could only occur when a chicken ate melamine-tainted feed. Consumers concerned Despite reassurances from health experts and companies, demand for eggs has fallen by up to 30 percent since the scandal broke last weekend, the manager of a Ho Chi Minh City supermarket said. Egg distributors across the country are anxious to prove their products are safe. Ba Huan Company in HCMC, which sells 50 percent of its eggs to the city’s supermarkets, said its eggs could not be contaminated with melamine because the whole process from farming to consumption was local and monitored very carefully. A representative from CP Vietnam has also guaranteed the safety of its eggs, promising to release the results of tests soon. Truong Thi Kim Chau, deputy head of HCMC Animal Health Office, also said consumers shouldn’t worry about buying eggs from well-known supermarkets and retailers. In China, there are grave fears about food safety. It is expected to take a long time to restore consumer confidence there, depending on how the government and the food industry do their jobs, AFP reported. United Nations health authorities say melamine may be used in other livestock industries, meaning pork, beef and many other parts of China’s food chain could be contaminated with the industrial chemical, according to AFP. Reported by Thanh Nien staff

Conjoined twins born in central province

Two girls were born at An Phuoc General Hospital in south-central Binh Thuan Province early Sunday joined at the torso.

The 4.4-kilo babies have a shared circulatory system and a navel. One was in good health, while the other had to be put on a respirator. The 20-year-old mother, a Cham ethnic minority woman from Phan Thanh Commune in Binh Thuan Province’s Bac Binh District, was discovered to have conjoined twins in the 30th week of pregnancy. The mother and babies received free medical care at the hospital and were transported to Tu Du Maternity Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City Sunday morning for further medical attention. Reported by Que Ha

Vietnam begins checking eggs for melamine

Authorities are checking eggs for melamine contamination after media reports that traces of the industrial chemical was found inside chicken eggs sold in China’s Hong Kong.

Tests over the weekend detected melamine in eggs in Hong Kong imported from Dalian in northeastern China, Reuters reported Tuesday. Dalian province’s Hanwei Group, which supplied the contaminated batch of eggs, has reportedly apologized to consumers and distributors. Vietnam’s Deputy Health Minister Cao Minh Quang said the ministry was tracking eggs that may have been bought from China by residents of Vietnam’s border provinces. The Food Administration was checking if a brand of Chinese dried egg powder identified as contaminated by the World Health Organization (WHO) had been issued an import license, Quang said. He said the Health Ministry will work with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and customs authorities to check eggs. “Food inspectors will inspect eggs and egg powder imported into Vietnam,” he said. The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development is to send officials today to take samples of eggs and chicken food from northern farms to test for melamine. Head of the ministry’s Breeding Bureau Hoang Kim Giao said the results would be known in a few days, adding that the samples would be taken in several cities and provinces, including Hanoi and Bac Ninh and Hoa Binh provinces. However, Quang said he believed local eggs would be found to be free of melamine, an industrial chemical used to make plastic. Melamine-contaminated milk in China has killed four infants and sickened more than 53,000 children. Earlier tests of livestock feed, conducted after China’s tainted milk scandal broke last month, found no trace of the chemical. A source from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development said Vietnam did not import eggs from China but there was a possibility Chinese eggs could have been brought into the country overland by residents of border areas. Reported by Quang Duan – Nam Son

Controversial driving license plan dropped

The Ministry of Health Wednesday proposed the government abandon plans to introduce height and weight restrictions on driving licenses.

The ministry also called on the Ministry of Transport to coordinate with relevant ministries and sectors to develop a set of health requirements for motorbike drivers. The proposal to impose numerous restrictions on driving licenses, including height and weight limits, was met by outrage by the public. Eleven amendments to the proposal still did not satisfy critics. The Ministry of Health said it had come up with the proposed license restrictions after the government instructed it to take measures to minimize accidents and congestion. Under the Health Ministry proposal, people who weigh less than 40 kilograms (88 lbs) or are less than 145 centimeters (4’9”) tall were to be banned from holding A1 motorbike licenses, regardless of age. The proposal also stipulated drivers who wish to drive cars with up to nine seats for private use, must be more than 150 centimeters (4’11”) in height. More than 80 other conditions, including those relating to mental health, heart conditions and vision, were also included in the proposal. Reported by Bao Van

Public apathy blamed as dengue fever changes trend

The city plans to discuss fresh anti-dengue fever measures with all its districts today, with evidence emerging that a usual drop in cases at this time of the year is being reversed.

More than 10,000 cases of dengue fever have been reported in Ho Chi Minh City this year, with 30 percent of the patients being adult, Le Truong Giang, deputy director of the city Department of Health, told Thanh Nien Monday. There are more than 500 new cases every week, mainly from Tan Binh, Thu Duc and Binh Thanh Districts, Giang said. “The problem is many citizens don’t care about preventing dengue fever. Most of the city residents don’t use mosquito nets when sleeping and some even don’t allow medical workers to come inside their houses to spray mosquito pesticides.” Of the 166 inpatients at the Children Hospital No. 2’s Infectious Disease Department Monday, 102 had been diagnosed with dengue fever and many of them were in critical condition. Many suffered from hemorrhaging, loss of consciousness, respiratory failure, and abnormal liver, kidney and brain functions. The mosquito-borne disease, a common disease in developing countries, is marked by high fever, dermal eruptions, and severe pain in the head and limbs. Dr. Huynh Trong Dan of the department said the number of dengue cases usually dropped at this time of the year but the spread of the fever in HCMC has yet to decrease this year. Most patients came from the outlying districts of Thu Duc, Binh Thanh and District 9, he said. According to the Hospital for Tropical Diseases, there were 93 inpatients with dengue fever Monday, 67 of whom were adults. Dr. Nguyen Thi Dung said although adult dengue patients rarely suffer from many of the symptoms that children do, they often develop excessive bleeding, which is especially dangerous to those who have a period. The city now has the highest number of dengue fever cases nationwide, a local newspaper quoted Head of the Vietnam Administration of Preventive Health Nguyen Huy Nga as saying. One of the reasons, according to Nga, is the area’s high density of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes – which spreads the disease. Under infectious disease prevention laws, local People’s Committee chairmen are responsible for preventing dengue outbreaks in their localities, Nga said. Around 63,000 people have been affected with dengue in Vietnam so far this year. Over 50 have died nationwide, according to the administration. Reported by Thanh Tung

French doctors complete traditional medicine course in Hue

Hue Central Hospital has issued certificates to 10 French doctors who completed a three-day course in traditional medicine, its director, Bui Duc Phu, said Friday.

The doctors, who come from various hospitals in Reunion Island in France, trained in acupuncture for treating backache, sciatic nerve pain, and insomnia. This is the first time the hospital’s Traditional Medicine Department held such a course for foreigners. Reported by Bui Ngoc Long

New driving license conditions criticized

The Ministry of Justice has called for a delay in the introduction of height and weight restrictions on driving licenses.

Ministry of Justice spokesman Le Hong Son said the proposed new restrictions, announced by the Ministry of Health last month, were discriminatory and unconstitutional. Son said such restrictions should have been jointly agreed on by the ministries of Health, Justice, Transport and Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs. Under the Ministry of Health’s proposed new rules, people who weigh less than 40 kilograms (88 lbs) or are less than 145 centimeters (4’9”) tall will be banned from holding an A1 motorbike license, regardless of age. The decision, which was to take effect 15 days after it appeared in the official gazette, also set a minimum height for holders for car driving licenses of 150 centimeters (4’11”). More than 80 other conditions, including those relating to mental health, heart conditions and vision, were also included in the decision. Ministry of Health’s Treatment Department Deputy Director Tran Quy Tuong said on Sunday his office was yet to receive any official documents from the Ministry of Justice. Tuong refused to comment on the issue, apart from saying the ministry planned to convene a meeting to discuss the proposed new license requirements, adding modifications to new regulations were common. Reported by Nam Son, Thanh Phong

Dengue continues skyrocketing in HCMC

A seven-and-a-half-month-old baby in critical condition undergoes treatment for dengue fever at Ho Chi Minh City’s Children Hospital No. 2 Cases of dengue fever have surged over the last year and health officials say the dreaded disease is now showing greater complications.

Dengue fever in Ho Chi Minh City has increased dramatically this year with more than 10,000 cases and five deaths reported so far, according to the HCMC Preventive Health Center. Now, 242 out of around 320 wards and communes in the city have reported outbreaks of the disease. Nguyen Tran Chinh, director of the HCMC Hospital for Tropical Diseases said last month they admitted 1,000 adults and 532 children with dengue – nearly a 300 percent increase compared to the previous year. This month, 1,164 more patients have been hospitalized while last October, 716 were admitted. More than 100 in-patients were undergoing treatment at the hospital on Wednesday night. Dr. Nguyen Thi Kim Loan of the hospital’s Pediatrician Department A said 42 children were currently being treated for dengue and seven to eight of them were in danger of going into shock. Since the department has just 38 beds, two to three patients have to share a single bed while some even have to sleep on the floor or along corridors when the department is overcrowded. “Sometimes it looks like a refugee camp,” Loan said. The hospital’s Pediatrician Department B specializes in treating patients with blood poisoning (septicemia), but has now had to admit dengue fever patients as the dengue department is overloaded, said nurse Le My Tien. Tran Thi Thuy, deputy head of Children Hospital No. 2’s Infectious Disease Department, said on Thursday that since the end of November 2007, they have admitted 718 children, a 20 percent year-on-year increase. Eighty percent of patients were from HCMC, mainly District 2 and the suburban districts of Thu Duc, Go Vap and Binh Thanh. The department admits between 30 and 60 patients per day, Thuy said. Each day there are between 100 and 130 in-patients, of which 10-12 percent are in critical condition. On Wednesday, 15 children with dengue were listed in critical conditional the hospital. Some also had to share beds. Dr. Phan Tu Quy of the Hospital for Tropical Diseases’ Pediatric Recuperation Department said within the first three weeks of this month they admitted 50 children suffering shock due to dengue. Last month the department admitted 86 similar cases. More complications The signs and symptoms of dengue fever patients are also showing more complications than before, according to doctors. More patients are listed in critical condition and are suffering longer bouts of fever – up to 10 days in some cases. Bloody diarrhea, loss of consciousness, respiratory failure, and problems with the liver, kidneys and brain are other symptoms cropping up in greater numbers than before. Lam Thi My, deputy head of Children Hospital No. 1’s Dengue Fever Department, said numbers of dengue patients had never been so high at this time of the year before. Recently, babies less than three months old have also been coming in with dengue fever, said My. According to the HCMC Preventive Health Center, efforts to curb the disease from June to August have been largely ineffective. Until September 25, 2008, more than 56,100 cases of dengue fever and 52 deaths had been reported nationwide, the Ministry of Health reported. While the number of cases nationally has decreased by 22 percent and deaths have decreased by 15 percent year-on-year, 13 provinces and cities have suffered from greater outbreaks than in previous years. The southern provinces of Ca Mau and Binh Phuoc and the central province of Nghe An are among the localities with the highest rates, including deaths. Nguyen Thi Thu Ha, vice chairwoman of the HCMC People’s Committee, has ordered local agencies to take better measures to reduce the incidence of dengue. Other epidemics This month, epidemics of other diseases have also seen an increase nationwide, said Nguyen Huy Nga, head of the Administration of Preventive Medicine and Environment on Thursday. Acute diarrhea and cholera have hit the central provinces of Nghe An and Thanh Hoa, increasing the number of affected individuals to 4,667 this year, of which nearly 800 were cholera cases. Fatal encephalitis and meningitis caused by food poisoning, meanwhile, are also on the increase. In the north, the number of children hospitalized with other diseases has also skyrocketed, Nga said. The Vietnam National Hospital of Pediatrics sees nearly 1,500 children per day. Two-thirds are diagnosed with viral fever, pneumonia or respiratory inflammation. Source: TT, SGGP

Blights in the eye of young beholders

A young student wears glasses at the Nguyen Binh Khiem Primary School in Ho Chi Minh City’s District 1. Doctors at the city’s major eye hospital are concerned about increasing vision problems among students.

More and more students in Ho Chi Minh City are having vision problems, including nearsightedness, farsightedness and astigmatism, say doctors at the HCMC Ophthalmology Hospital. (Astigmatism causes headaches or eyestrain and distorts or blurs vision at all distances.) Nearly 40 percent of 2,774 surveyed students at primary schools, secondary schools and high schools have vision problems. This compares to 8.65 percent in 1994 and 25.3 percent in 2004. Of all the surveyed students, nearly 39 percent suffer from nearsightedness (Myopia) and 0.47 percent from farsightedness (Hyperopia). Students from schools in the city center account for the highest percent (57 percent) of nearsighted students, while 38.8 percent of suburban students are nearsighted, according to the survey. Secondary and high school students make up nearly 90 percent of students with vision problems. During the survey, the doctors also found out many students had differences between their left and right eyes. Some suffered from a difference of more than four diopters or even 10 diopters. This, according to the doctors, is their greatest concern since it can put students in danger of visual impairment or squinting. Moreover, the vision of 26 percent of students with vision problems is lower than 6/10, they said. Although basic knowledge about eye conditions and vision problems has been propagated through the media and at school, there are significant shortcomings in awareness among students, parents and teachers. The survey showed just 16.6 percent of students have good knowledge about eyes and visions. Many parents still think that wearing glasses will make their children’s vision problem worse. They are also not aware that these problems can lead to visual impairment and squinting. Many even ignore the advice that students should have their eyes and vision checked every six months or once a year, the doctors said. Due to the knowledge deficiency, not many students with vision problems wear glasses, or do not wear glasses corresponding to their vision. Around 67 percent of students with vision problems wear glasses, the survey found. “Downstream” impacts Le Thi Thanh Xuyen, vice director of the hospital, says it is common in HCMC that a class has more than 40 students, some even 50 to 60 students, causing many of them to sit as many as seven meters away from the blackboard. This will affect the studying performance of those students who have problems with their vision, she said. Other social impacts are also considerable, Xuyen says. She estimates that there are over one million students citywide with 39.35 percent of them having vision problems, meaning that around 393,500 students have to wear glasses. A pair of glasses costs VND200,000 (US$12.17) on average, so every year the minimum expenditure on glasses for students is around VND80 billion ($4.87 million). Xuyen advises parents and students to protect their vision by eating food useful for the eyes; keeping a proper distance from books, blackboards, televisions and computers; engaging in more outdoor sports; and avoiding studying all day in a room with vision range restricted by walls. Source: SGGP

No let up from heavy rains in central, southern Vietnam

Dien Bien Phu Street in Thua Thien-Hue Province was heavily flooded Saturday Incessant rain has lashed central and southern regions over the last two days, leaving many provinces and cities under water and causing major material losses.

In the central region, Thua Thien-Hue Province and its neighboring Da Nang City were worst hit by the rains since Friday, local authorities said. The rains destroyed properties, felled trees, clogged traffic and closed schools in many localities. A majority of residential areas in the central province of Thua Thien-Hue were submerged until noon Saturday, despite the fact that the river waters have yet to reach their highest levels. Many households said their properties and belongings were swept away by sudden floods which had struck since 6 a.m. Saturday. Their plight was worsened as the drainage system in the province failed, and waters rose up to three meters in many areas. All schools in Hue Town shut down Saturday due to heavy flooding, according to local authorities. In the north of Thua Thien-Hue Province, paramilitary forces were dispatched to many flooded streets such as Le Thanh Ton, Han Thuyen, Thanh Giong, Nguyen Xuan On, Le Dai Hanh, Tran Quoc Toan, or Mai An Tiem, to help with evacuation. Other streets in the south of Thua Thien-Hue, like Nguyen Hue, Hung Vuong, Nguyen Tri Phuong, Nguyen Thai Hoc, or Hai Ba Trung were also flooded. Rescue forces said they had to use boats to evacuate residents to safer ground. Uncontrolled housing construction in the south of Thua Thien-Hue should be blamed for worsening the flood situation, residents told Thanh Nien. The constructors had cleared the sites to build houses with scant attention paid to upgrading the drainage systems, they said. The water levels in Thua Thien-Hue’s rivers were expected to continue surging and could top the highest emergency levels in coming days, meteorological experts said. Elsewhere, in Da Nang City, the central business hub, persistent rains have also felled many trees in major streets and flooded many districts. HCMC braces for rising waters Flood tides are expected to soar in HCMC until next Thursday, the Southern Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting Center said Saturday. The water level in the Saigon River could reach up to 1.42 m in forthcoming days and is likely to submerge parts of the city. Many areas in the city will be flooded if the water level hits 1.25 m. The center told all district authorities to take necessary precautions to cope with seven new cycles of flood tides expected to occur until the Lunar New Year in late January. The municipal Steering Committee for Flood Control and Prevention also told flood-prone districts like 12, Thu Duc, Go Vap, Binh Thanh, Hoc Mon, and Cu Chi to beef up monitoring of the dike system. The city government also urged district authorities to expedite the progress of flood-preventive infrastructure works slated for completion this year. Of 151 flood prevention projects scheduled for completion this year, only 10 have been completed. The latest heavy rains on Friday also submerged many streets in HCMC, particularly in outlying districts such as Binh Chanh, Binh Tan, and 11. In mid-October, the flood tides, the highest since early this year, had triggered heavy flooding in HCMC, bursting many dikes in Districts 12, Thu Duc, Hoc Mon, and Cu Chi. Reported by Thanh Nien staff

Medicine women

Two Dao women in Yen Son Village in the northern mountainous district of Ba Vi cut and dry therapeutic herbs to sell in packages that cost US$0.6–1.8 each. It’s a slippery slope for Ethnic Dao medicine gatherers who face work hazards, poverty and government restrictions.

The Dao women of Yen Son Village enter the jungle at 4 a.m. and don’t return home until after the sun sets. They scour the forests surrounding their small enclave of 900 people for fresh medicinal herbs. Only 50 kilometers from the capital Hanoi, the mountainous district of Ba Vi is more remote and removed than one might think. The village is 100 percent ethnic Dao, a rarity in such proximity to a metropolitan center. The Dao here have been growing, collecting, drying and selling medicinal plants for generations. Eighty percent of Yen Son earns their living off the medicinal herbs found in the area. Though most households cultivate medicinal plants in their home gardens, they still take long day treks into the forest searching for rarer and more valuable wild plants. After collecting the plants, the therapeutic herbs are cut, dried and sold in small packages. “Collecting herbs in the jungle is like going fishing,” said 60-year-old herb collector Dang Thi Hoa. She said that they never know how much they’ll come back with. Some of the most sought-after plants only grow on steep mountainsides or cliffs, and picking them is dangerous, she said. Hoa’s “colleague,” Trieu Thi Khang likened picking herbs in the forest to “donating blood” to the jungle’s leeches. The hillsides are especially hazardous on wet and rainy days,when the women’s legs become tired after hours of trying not to slide on the slippery rocks and mud. They also have to avoid wild animals and snakes. Hoa’s husband Ly Van Thanh was seriously injured when he fell off a steep hill as he collected herbs. Now disabled, he stays at home and dries the herbs picked by his wife. Most herb gatherers’ arms and legs are scarred and scratched from thorns and rocks. Though collecting herbs is arduous, it brings only small profits. Each package of medicine costs just VND10,000-30,000 (US$0.6 - 1.8). Trieu Thi Hoa, chairwoman of the Ba Vi Herbal Plant Association, said the mountainous region has around 280 species of therapeutic herbs. But the herbal remedies aren’t as abundant in Ba Vi, so many locals travel as far as neighboring provinces Hoa Binh, Phu Tho, and Lao Cai in search of more plants. Dr. Nguyen Minh Ha from the Military’s Hospital of Traditional Medicine in Ba Vi said his hospital often uses herbal remedies from Dao villages to cure patients of many diseases and afflictions. He said the traditional plants are especially needed here as many remote areas lack a stable supply of Western medicine. Aside from specific treatment, many of the Dao remedies can be taken everyday to boost immune functions, he said. His hospital now offers training courses for people who want to learn to pick and preserve herbs for their therapeutic uses. But Yen Son Village chief Trieu Van Quang said there were many areas of local forests that the Dao are not allowed to enter for preservation purposes. He said Yen Son planned to ask for permission to collect herbs in areas that were now off-limits. Reported by Hoang Trung Hieu

Vietnamese, US cardiologists exchange experience

Vietnamese and American cardiologists met at a seminar held Wednesday in Ho Chi Minh City to exchange experience and expertise.

Among the key speakers were Dr. Anthony Nicholas Demari, editor-in-chief of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology and several Vietnamese American cardiologists. The seminar focused on key issues such as lowering patients’ cholesterol and appropriate treatments for lowering the risk of cardiovascular diseases. Organizer Hoan My Hospital said the American cardiologists also conducted two high-risk cardiovascular operations Wednesday for teaching purposes. Reported by Thanh Tung

Vietnam to send back contaminated milk to China

Inspectors take imported powder milk samples from Hanoi Milk Joint Stock Company (Hanoimilk) Wednesday More than 393 tons of melamine-contaminated milk powder imported from China will be sent back and 384 tons of contaminated liquid milk and milk ingredients destroyed, a health official said Thursday.

This was agreed at a meeting in Hanoi Thursday by representatives from the ministries of Industry and Trade; Agriculture and Rural Development; Natural Resources and Environment; Foreign Affairs; Public Security; Science and Technology; and Health, Deputy Minister of Health Cao Minh Quang said. The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment will decide on the technical process to destroy the dirty milk by November 5. The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development representative said at the meeting that milk of bad quality or unidentified source cannot be used for raising animals. Quang said at the meeting that melamine is not allowed in food in general and in milk and its products in particular. Reported by Nam Son

Vietnam defers melamine limit announcement in public interest

The permissible concentration of melamine, an industrial chemical, in dairy products would not be made public at the present in order to avoid public complacency, Deputy Health Minister Cao Minh Quang said Sunday.

Melamine, a chemical used to make plastics, was found to have been illegally used in baby milk formulas to water-down raw milk and raise its apparent protein content. If the Ministry of Health announced the permissible concentration limit of melamine, the public would relax their vigilance against dairy products containing the chemical below those levels and could end up suffering chronic poisoning with regular use, Quang said at a press briefing in Hanoi Sunday. Such contamination would be very difficult to discover in the initial phase and would only manifest itself after consumers had developed symptoms like kidney stones, he said. Recent nationwide milk inspections have discovered many dairy products that fell short of required nutritional quality. Of 20 milk samples examined, half had protein content lower than what was stated on the label, said Tran Van Dung, Director of the Quality Assurance and Testing Center III, at the meeting held to review inspections carried out across the country in the wake of the melamine scandal. The protein content in one product was just 0.5 percent compared with the 20 percent its label boasted, Dung said. Minister of Health Nguyen Quoc Trieu also said at the press briefing that Vietnam has almost succeeded in stopping the use of melamine-tainted dairy products nationwide. Inspections over the past month have discovered 24 melamine-contaminated dairy products. However, Trieu asked agencies concerned to continue their inspections into milk quality to ensure no poisonous dairy products would affect public health. The melamine contamination scandal broke out in China, where it killed at least four children and sickened 53,000, prompting bans or recalls of Chinese goods around the world. MELAMINE-CONTAMINATED PRODUCTS IN VIETNAM ■ Kim An Company: Yili milk (1-liter and 250-mililiter tins), Yili original flavors (250-mililiter tin), Yili fresh milk. ■ A Chau Company: Non-dairy creamer. ■ Hanoimilk: Full cream milk powder grade A, Blue Cow – Full cream milk powder used for UHT milk, Hi-P Chocolate UHT milk, Whole Milk 1 powdered milk, Whole Milk 2 powdered milk, Hanoimilk sweetened yoghurt, Hanoimilk non-fat milk 2. ■ Thuc Pham Vang Company: Golden Food milk. ■ Mai Anh Company: Advanced Distribution powdered milk. ■ Dai Vinh Company: Khong Guan cookies from Indonesia and Malaysia, Khina Guan Aquare Puff cookies, Khong Guan Marie and Khian Guan Superior cookies. ■ Anco Company: Full Cream Milk Powder. ■ Minh Duong Company: Powdered milk, non-dairy creamer. ■ Importer unknown: Yili Pure Milk. Reported by Lien Chau

Polluted water blamed for cancer cluster

Several households in Dak Mar Commune have installed water filters hoping to make their water safe to drink Residents of a hamlet in the central highlands province of Kon Tum say they live in a “cancer village” after 11 villagers were diagnosed with the disease.

Residents of Dak Mar Commune’s No. 1 Village, on the bank of a small stream, use “greenish” water from wells for their daily needs, according to village head Tran Thanh Tuan. Only eight of the village’s 173 households can afford water filters which cost at least VND2 million (US$121) each, Tuan said. Vietnam’s annual per capita income is still below $1,000. After local residents raised concerns about the high incidents of cancer, the Tay Nguyen Institute of Epidemic Prevention sent experts to the hamlet to collect water samples but the results have not yet been announced. Hamlet resident Dao Thi Mai said her 64-year-old husband Nguyen Thien Tuy was suffering end-stage cancer. Tuy’s first symptom was a fingertip-sized tumor on his neck that grew quickly and now restricts his breathing. Hospitals in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City were unable to cure Tuy. Of the 11 villagers diagnosed with cancer, seven have already died. Reported by Ya Ly

HCMC kids get helmets

Children at four Ho Chi Minh City primary schools have been given helmets by The Dow Chemical Company, Porsche and the Asia Injury Prevention Foundation.

The foundation said US-based Dow gave about 4,500 helmets to Dong Da, Ha Huy Tap and Hoang Van Thu primary schools in Binh Thanh and Tan Binh districts. German carmaker Porsche donated about 390 helmets to poor students at the First June Vocation and Training Primary School in HCMC’s District 4. The helmet donation is a part of Dow and Porshe’s contribution the foundation’s “Helmets for Kids” program which has been running in Vietnam since 1999. To date, the program has distributed more than 350,000 helmets to primary school students in Vietnam, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. Reported by Vinh Bao

Banned drug kills another consumer

Nguyen Thi My Hien from HCMC shows the remaining powder sachets of a banned traditional medicine originating from Cambodia that are thought to have killed her brother-in-law recently A Ho Chi Minh City resident who had been taking a banned traditional medicine originating from Cambodia recently died two days after being admitted to the HCMC Hospital for Tropical Diseases.

His death has raised the alarm over the return of the medicine labeled “Thuoc dan toc cuu nhan vat” (Traditional medicine to save humans), which had been banned last year by health authorities after several individuals were hospitalized and subsequently died after consuming it. The most recent victim was hospitalized with a fever, muscle contractions and severe low blood pressure. Doctors said he suffered a blood infection. Sister-in-law Nguyen Thi My Hien of the deceased patient, T.V.T., said he had been using the medicine for nearly a year to treat his stomachache and coughs. He had bought the medicine at the price of VND7,000 (40 cents) per package of 10 sachets, she added. Subsequent tests by the HCMC Health Department confirmed the medicine used by the patient to be the banned drug. Hien said many individuals from her hometown in Dong Thap Province used the banned medicine because of its cheap price and immediate effects within just a few days. However, she said some of their illnesses lingered or even grew worse after an extended period of using the drug. Health hazard In August, a test conducted by the Health Ministry to verify the contents of the drug found it to contain dangerous medicinal substances, including Diazepam, Dexamethasone and Cyproheptadin. Professor Nguyen Hoai Nam from the HCMC University of Pharmacy and Medicine said the use of such drugs should only be prescribed and monitored by doctors. “The identified substances [in the tested drug] have dangerous side effects,” he said. “Diazepam acts as a tranquilizer but it may be harmful if the patient were suffering from asthenia, while Dexamethasone is used to treat inflammatory conditions and numb pain but it affects blood pressure, the heart and stomach, and weakens bones.” Vietnam’s Medicine Administration Department has issued warnings against the banned Cambodian drug, which had been retailed illegally in 20 cities and provinces nationwide. The medicine may temporarily help to alleviate pain, fever, tension and inflammation, but in the process also mask the true symptoms of the disease. It may aid patients to have sound sleep and a good appetite in the first few days of use, but potential side effects can be lethal – including causing addictive conditions and severe diseases in the kidney, liver, and digestive and endocrine systems, the department warned. Reported by Nhu Lich

Flies plague Mekong Delta province

Clouds of houseflies from a large chicken farm are causing havoc in the Mekong Delta province of Long An, spreading sickness and annoying residents.

The flies swarm in houses, on food and on people, causing coughs and skin allergies in the children of 3B and 4A hamlets in Huu Thanh Commune of Duc Hoa District. Locals said they have to eat under mosquito nets to keep the flies at bay. The insects are breeding in masses of excrement at a nearby chicken farm, which keeps 65,000 fowls, locals said. The farm owner said she used chemicals every day to clear the droppings but due to a lack of personnel she couldn’t clean the chicken coops properly. Vice chairman of the commune’s People’s Committee, Huynh Van Tan, told Thanh Nien the farm owner had been asked to clean up the waste but nothing much had been done. Environment police also had come to investigate the case but no action had been taken, Tan said. While authorities have not been much help in solving the problem, a local doctor has found a way to deal with the pests. Tran Van Quy, also known as Sau Quy, applied glue, designed to catch mice, to small pieces of cardboard to trap the flies. Quy said in three months he had used 500 cardboard “fly traps” which could kill about 1,000 flies each. Other people have learned Quy’s method and the home-made “fly traps” have eased the situation slightly. Nearby, Thuy Duong Restaurant’s owner said the traps had been very helpful but she had to hide them to avoid disgusting her customers. “But even with Sau Quy’s method, we cannot eliminate the flies,” she said. Reported by Lam Vu

The Ministry of Health

The Ministry of Health Wednesday said inspection teams from the two health departments will cooperate with local preventative health centers and related agencies to step up checks. Action should be taken swiftly against businesses found flouting wine production regulations, the ministry said. Recent cases of wine poisoning in HCMC were found to have been caused by high levels of methanol in batches of rice wine, some of which came from Tay Ninh Province. Reported by Nam Son

Drinkers unfazed by deadly booze warnings

Industrial alcohol (top plastic drum) used to make low-quality wine is widely available at Kim Bien Market in District 5 Producers and distributors turn a deaf ear to recent public health alerts against low-quality liquors, while the public remains largely nonchalant.

It’s before 8 p.m. and many pubs along Go Vap District’s Pham Van Chieu Street are already crowded with factory laborers enjoying a drink after a hard day’s work, most of whom are oblivious to the recent alcohol poisoning scandal in Ho Chi Minh City. “I just know that wine can cause headaches,” said Thanh, a worker of Hue Phong Company. Local authorities have reported 27 cases of alcohol poisoning, including nine resulting deaths in the past two weeks. Health officials are blaming high levels of methanol for the scourge and warn that the cases are multiplying rapidly. Methanol is a toxic chemical used as solvent, fuel, and in antifreeze solutions for motor vehicles. The allowable content of this substance in any alcoholic beverage is less than 0.1 percent. Thanh was astonished upon being informed of the deaths. “Maybe I’ll drink less from now on,” he said. After listening in on the conversation, some drinkers in the same pub with Thanh turned to order beer instead of wine. However, these patrons are among the few who have been updated about the danger associated with alcoholic beverages currently being sold. Rampant violations On any particular night, many pubs along the Thi Nghe Canal running from District 1’s Dien Bien Phu Bridge to Phu Nhuan District’s Kieu Bridge are crowded with customers. A pub owner in the area said his sales often double on rainy days when customers like to drink while eating hotpots. Another pub on District 11’s Ly Nam De Street, which sells pip banana wine at VND24,000 (US$1.45) a liter, empties around 100 liters of wine every three to four days, said the owner, who declined to be named. Sales of alcoholic products in stores across the city seem unaffected by recent health authorities’ warnings after many wine products last week were found to contain high methanol content. On Tuesday, HCMC Market Management seized around 420 wine bottles found with higher methanol contents than the acceptable level. At Hoa Viet Company in District 8, officials seized 210 bottles bought from Saigon Food Company (Safoco). Many of Safoco’s products last week were discovered to have methanol contents 70-172 times higher than allowed. On Monday, a distillery in Cu Chi District was found to lack business certificates or labeling of product quality. Three stores at Ben Thanh Market also failed to present inspectors with papers to verify the origin and quality of hundreds of wine bottles. Last Sunday, officials found Dong Phat store in District 1 selling 12 wine bottles which expired in May and have no certificates of origin. Meanwhile, raw materials to make low-quality wine continue to be sold widely. Kim Bien Market in District 5 sells food-based and industrial alcohols at VND13,000-15,000 ($0.79-0.91) a liter for buyers to mix with water to make wine. Often one liter of these types of alcohol would make four liters of wine. Aromatic spices and colorings are also available to make the mixture taste like rice wine, rum or whisky. Pham Xuan Da from the Food Hygiene and Safety Office under the Ministry of Health said wines of low or dubious quality can be lethal when consumed. Rice is currently priced at more than VND10,000 (60 cents) a kilogram and 10 kilograms can be made into seven liters of wine at most, Da said. “So there’s no way a liter of wine can be priced as low as VND5,000.” “Deaths have occurred, but what about the number of people who suffer cirrhosis, kidney failure or brain damage from consuming such poison?” he said. On Wednesday, HCMC Health Department summoned leading health experts on emergency aid and poison treatment across the city to set up a program to treat alcohol poisoning based on available equipment and facilities. Source: Tuoi Tre

Hazardous health centers

The wastewater from HCMC’s Children Hospital No. 1 runs through a pipeline into the city’s drainage system. Untreated wastewater from hospitals nationwide poses a huge health risk.

The An Binh Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City’s District 5 hasn’t had an effective waste treatment system for the past 15 years. The hospital had invested in a 400 cubic meters a day treatment system, but it stopped working after a short time, according to doctor Nguyen Dinh Chanh. With more than 500 beds, it discards some 500 cubic meters of wastewater underground or into the waterways every day. An Binh Hospital is symptomatic of a larger malaise that infects many other hospitals in HCMC, posing a public health hazard that policy makers have paid scant attention to. Cho Ray is ranked among the hospitals which have waste treatment systems but it uses one that has been in service since 1972. It has a tank able to hold 500 cubic meters of wastewater while it spews out 3,200 cubic meters every day. Thus there’s not enough time for the waste to be treated before it is discharged into the environment, with rocks and gravel providing insufficient filtering. Saigon General Hospital, one of the city’s leading hospitals, has no choice but to release 300 cubic meters of untreated wastewater into the city drainage system every day. “It has had no wastewater treatment system ever,” says Nguyen Van Xuyen, the hospital’s director. Recent estimates by the HCMC Health Department have the city receiving more than 17,000 cubic meters of wastewater from 130 state hospitals and medical centers, of which 39 have no wastewater treatment facilities and 43 have substandard systems. Some hospitals and medical centers are labeled substandard because the bar was raised in 2002 and their treatment systems have yet to be upgraded. The above figures don’t include thousands of private medical centers whose wastewater treatment is out of the city authorities’ control. A report in March by the Environment Protection Agency under the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment found HCMC’s hospital wastewater “is a potential source of water-borne disease transmission.” Wastewater is mainly discharged from surgeries, medical tests, treatments, and hygienic cleansing activities. Over the past decade, new hospitals have sprung up and old ones have expanded at a fast pace, but the increase in patient intake has been inversely matched by their wastewater treatment capacity. Cho Ray Hospital, for example, was first built to hold 800 beds. The number is 1,700 at present and will be 3,000 in the near future. Still the hospital’s wastewater treatment system has not been upgraded correspondingly. Children Hospital No. 1 has been using a system that can treat 400 cubic meters a day since it started operating in 1992, according to the hospital’s director Tang Chi Thuong. It would keep the wastewater in a tank for 15 minutes and then use air entrainment method and chemicals to treat the waste in another tank. The hospital carries out this process four times a day, spending a total of VND30 million (US$1,800) a month, not including the cost of taking wastewater samples for testing every month. But after its daily wastewater generation jumped to 800 cubic meters a day and its inpatient numbers reached 1,200-1,500, the hospital failed to treat it to meet safety standards. It was fined VND10 million ($604) by the Department of Natural Resources and Environment recently. Thuong says last year the hospital set up a VND12 billion ($725,000) project which can treat 1,500 cubic meters of wastewater a day, but the project had to go through numerous administrative formalities and was yet to be implemented. Chanh says the same thing happened with An Binh Hospital when it launched a wastewater treatment project in 2004. The Health Department suggested to An Binh that it should seek financial support from a certain market association, but it had to wait without a response for so long that the project was switched back to the city budget. By this time, the construction cost had jumped from VND4 billion ($242,000) to VND5 billion ($302,000). All the preparatory steps have just been completed and the hospital is rushing things so that construction can begin this year, says Chanh. A shortage of funds seems to be a common problem for any hospital wishing to improve its wastewater treatment, including the Trung Vuong Emergency Hospital, says Nguyen Kim Thien, the hospital’s deputy director. In January the hospital started work on its treatment system, expecting to spend VND11.6 billion ($700,700), but when the construction material prices surged later, the contractors abandoned the project after the hospital did not agree to pay them another VND178 million ($10,752). According to Nguyen Van Chau, director of city’s Health Department, some decisions by the city administration have made the problem worse. In late 2007, the city People’s Committee banned all hospitals and medical centers in the city center from starting new constructions. The Health Department recently asked for wastewater treatment projects to be excluded from the ban because “it’s impossible to cut the amount of wastewater from the hospitals,” said Chau. Meanwhile, the Saigon General Hospital has yet to build its treatment system because the city has informed it will be moved, without revealing when, says Xuyen. At the city meeting in August 2006, the Department of Natural Resources and Environment asked all the city hospitals to build wastewater treatment systems by January 2007. No north-south divide Numerous hospitals with so much untreated wastewater is also old news in Hanoi. Hanoi’s 32 large hospitals discharge more than 6,000 cubic meters of wastewater a day, half of which is untreated, says a report by the city’s Department of Natural Resources and Environment. All wastewater from the Hanoi Obstetrics Hospital flows directly into the city’s drainage system. In May this year, staff of the Central Hospital for Tuberculosis and Lung Diseases in the capital city were caught allegedly selling untreated medical waste to outsiders. Similar operations at Hanoi’s Bach Mai, K and Viet Duc hospitals were uncovered by the police in 2007, and the Viet Duc Hospital was fined VND20 million ($1,208). In June, the Environment Protection Agency proposed fining the Son La General Hospital in northern Son La Province VND47 million ($2,840) for dumping untreated medical waste and wastewater into its surroundings. In central Da Nang City, the Health Department says hospitals discharge not less than 4,000 cubic meters of wastewater a day but 57 percent of the hospitals don’t have treatment systems. Among those that do, half are not tested regularly. The city also has 56 state and 700 private health centers which release wastewater directly into the public drainage system. According to statistics issued last year by the Ministry of Health, only a third of the country’s 1,050 hospitals and over 10,000 health centers have installed waste treatment facilities. Most of the country’s hospitals are old, building the treatment system underground and thus “it’s hard to check if they comply with safety standards,” says Ly Ngoc Kinh, head of the Health Ministry’s Treatment Department. “To improve those old wastewater treatment systems costs a big sum of money. The authorities in large cities have not paid much attention to the matter of medical waste. “If we are not determined to get rid of it, we’ll kill ourselves.” Source: TT, TN

Doctors remove parasitic fetus from girl in southern Vietnam

Doctors successfully removed a parasitic fetus from a seven-year-old girl last Friday, a representative from the Dong Nai Pediatric Hospital said on Saturday.

Nguyen Thi Hong Hanh was admitted to the hospital on October 16 with a stomachache which was found to be caused by a tumor measuring 20 cm long, 12 cm wide and 12 cm thick. The tumor was identified as a parasitic twin with a vertebral column, arms, legs, internal organs and a head with no brain. The fetus weighed 1.2 kilograms and took up half the girl’s abdominal cavity. The mass was removed during a two-hour operation on October 17. Doctors said the condition, known as fetus in fetu, is a rare abnormality occurring once out of every 500,000 live births when a fetus becomes enveloped inside its twin in utero. The parasitic twin can develop an entire organ system within the host twin but lacks critical functioning of many vital organs and is essentially considered a tumor. In related news, doctors from Hanoi’s Vietnam National Hospital of Pediatrics removed a parasitic fetus from a six-month-old girl earlier this month. Source: Thanh Nien

Woman Ok after 3.5kg tumor removed, says hospital

A woman who had a 3.5 kilogram uterine fibroma removed has been discharged from a local hospital in central Quang Ngai province, according to the hospital.

Fifty-one-year-old Huynh Thi Bon was hospitalized several days ago with bleeding and a swelling womb. After a three-hour operation, doctors successfully removed the 3.5kg fibroma from her uterus. According to doctors, Bon’s benign tumor was some 35 times bigger than the average case. Bon said she could not afford regular medical check-ups and did not know she had such a big tumor. Source: Tuoi Tre Online

Woman Ok after 3.5kg tumor removed, says hospital

A woman who had a 3.5 kilogram uterine fibroma removed has been discharged from a local hospital in central Quang Ngai province, according to the hospital.

Fifty-one-year-old Huynh Thi Bon was hospitalized several days ago with bleeding and a swelling womb. After a three-hour operation, doctors successfully removed the 3.5kg fibroma from her uterus. According to doctors, Bon’s benign tumor was some 35 times bigger than the average case. Bon said she could not afford regular medical check-ups and did not know she had such a big tumor. Source: Tuoi Tre Online

Hanoi aims to be Vietnam’s first ‘City Without Smoke’

A smoking ban in Hanoi’s state offices, public places and public transportation will begin next April, according to a plan recently approved by city administrators.

The City Without Smoke campaign will be implemented by the municipal People’s Committee in partnership with Health Bridge, a Canada-based non-governmental organization. Authorities in the capital will begin promoting the policy later this month, according to the plan. In related news, Health Bridge has recently released a study on the health impacts of smoking in Vietnam. Some 11 percent of students surveyed between the ages of 13-15 in nine provinces and cities including Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City had tried smoking. The percentage of students in that age group who now smoke regularly is 3.3 percent, according to the study. Source: Tuoi Tre

Hospitals face uphill battle against cancer

Patients await examinations at the HCMC Oncology Hospital. Across the country, cancer patients face crowded hospitals and long waiting lists for treatment. Pollution and changing lifestyles are being blamed for an alarming health trend in Vietnam.

The number of cancer cases being reported in Vietnam is rising rapidly but hospitals are not keeping up with the demand for cancer treatment and care. Vietnam has 5,000 new cases of cervical cancer reported every year, said Nguyen Ba Duc, head of Vietnam Cancer Prevention and Treatment Institute. In Hanoi, the rate of women diagnosed with cancer has doubled since 1988 and the number of cases of breast and cervical cancer has tripled over the same period, according to statistics from the capital city’s K Hospital. Globally, cervical cancer kills more than 270,000 women annually and some 493,000 new cases are diagnosed each year, more than 80 percent of them in developing nations. In Ho Chi Minh City, 19 out of every 100,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer and 17 out of every 100,000 women are diagnosed with cervical cancer, HCMC Cancer Association Chairman Nguyen Chan Hung said, citing recent statistics. Cancers that affect the lungs, liver and stomach are often found late and are thus hard to cure, Hung said. Children are also at risk, with the National Hospital of Children’s Cancer Department treating around 3,000 patients every year. Around 200,000 Vietnamese people develop cancer each year, the Ministry of Health has reported. “Negative changes in the environment, in people’s nutrition regimen and lifestyles are some of the factors that are causing more cancer cases,” Hung said. In Minh Duc Town in the northern city of Hai Phong, residents claim cancer triggered by air pollution - which in some places is up to 12 times higher than allowed levels - and polluted underground water accounts for 70 percent of recent deaths in the area. Hai Phong has the highest annual rate of cancer-related deaths nationwide, with up to 4,000 patients diagnosed with cancer every year, according to a study by the city’s health agency last month. Vietnam’s hospitals are not coping with the climbing number of patients. In Hai Phong, the Viet Tiep Hospital for cancer patients has only 40 beds. At the Ho Chi Minh City Oncology Hospital, there are 1,100 beds and 150 doctors for 1,600 inpatients. Each department in the hospital has 100 to 500 cancer patients on surgical waiting lists, some of whom wait for months for their operations, said the hospital director Le Hoang Minh. Most of the country’s cancer patients rush to Hanoi and HCMC for treatment but HCMC Oncology Hospital doctor Pham Xuan Dung said “we cannot handle them all.” It’s become a common occurrence at central hospitals, including Cho Ray, Bach Mai or K, to have two or three patients sharing a bed, according to the Ministry of Health. Studies have proven that one-third of known cancers can be prevented, one-third can be cured if found early enough and the other third can be treated to extend the patients’ life, said Nguyen Ba Duc, head of Vietnam’s Cancer Treatment and Prevention Institute. But this is not the case in Vietnam where many hospitals do not have the necessary medicine and equipment for cancer diagnosis and treatment, said Phan Thanh Hai, director of Ho Chi Minh City Medical Diagnosis Center (Medic). Phi Yen from Hanoi’s K Hospital said the country needed around 300 kilograms of pain-killers a year for cancer patients alone. But only 14 kilograms are imported for both cancer patients and post-operative patients. Many of the 3,000 cancer patients at the National Hospital of Children require blood transfusions but its cancer department “has been facing a crisis” with many child patients dying because there is not enough blood, said the department head Bui Ngoc Lan. Hai said some hospitals provide surgery but “no after-surgery care.” “They’re also weak in psychotherapy to help lessen the patients’ pain,” he said. “We’re also way behind other countries in the use of Positron Emission Tomography (PET) and Computerized Tomography (CT), both standard imaging tools to help pinpoint the location of cancer within the body before beginning treatment.” Hai also said an overload of work restricted doctors from properly keeping track of the progression of each cancer case, meaning each patient did not get quality care. “This is why more cancer patients are seeking treatment overseas,” he said. Suspected agents In July locals of a small community in HCMC’s Binh Tan District reported 17 people had died from cancer since the 1980s. Inspectors from city authorities found the neighborhood once hosted 1,000 factories that dyed cloth and recycled plastics. Eighty percent of the factories were moved but the area wasstill contaminated with toxic waste, the inspectors found, and locals say their tap water smells foul. Local Duong Van Thanh said he lost his father to lung cancer and his mother to a brain tumor. Thanh said 10 of his relatives had died of various forms of cancer. Cancer-related fatalities in the neighborhood have increased since 1997, he said. Nguyen Thi Dam said her son had died from lung cancer and Duong Cong Thiet’s mother died of a brain tumor. In April, authorities and locals of central Thanh Hoa Province blamed contaminated water for a sharp increase in cancer cases in their commune. Statistics from the local medical center showed that cancer caused more than 70 percent of local deaths over the past few years. Recently the provincial health agencies informed that more than 20 local water samples contained toxins. The specific toxins were not identified. Well water is suspected of being the main cause for the local cancer outbreak. Commune authorities have asked residents to set up rainwater tanks as a temporary solution, but rainwater is only used for cooking. Another serious case of environment pollution was discovered last week when Hao Duong leather company was caught releasing untreated carcinogenic effluent into a river in HCMC’s Nha Be District. Since mid-September the firm has discharged around 2,500 cubic meters of effluent to the river every day, dozens of times higher that the permitted level, the city Department of Natural Resources and Environment said Monday. Reported by Thanh Nien staff

Lean on me

A patient (C) learns embroidery with two interns at the Mai Huong Day Psychiatric Hospital in Hanoi. A little support is all patients need at the country’s only outpatient psychiatric hospital.

Director of the Mai Huong Day Psychiatric Hospital Ngo Thanh Hoi says 20-year-old T. fell into a serious depression when a close family member died in an accident recently. Hoi says T. is always staring vacantly off in the distance and rarely speaks, except for in his English class. At the Hanoi hospital, T. and 20 other patients speak with enthusiasm in their English lessons everyday. The classes are all part of Mai Huong’s philosophy that encouragement, activities and learning are the paths to true health. T., a university student, first visited the hospital last month after the death in his family. Since then, T. has come to the hospital everyday to take part in group activities and receive medication. Recognizing T.’s English skills, doctors promoted him to teacher. They say this is one of their interactive treatment plans to help patients recover from mental illness. “Although we can’t tell you exactly how he became the way he is, we do know that he has become happier since he began treatment at the hospital,” says T.’s father. “I only hope to recover soon and resume my studies so that I can help protect farmers from natural disasters and floods,” T. says of his dream to become a relief worker. P.T.T. took her 40-year-old daughter to Mai Huong after she noticed what she called an “inferiority complex” in the woman. P.T.T. says her daughter is often sad and keeps silent for long periods of time, exhibiting common symptoms of depression. The mother says her daughter probably feels inferior to her two younger siblings who are more successful than her. However, her symptoms are not easily recognizable to anyone other than her family, P.T.T. says. She says her daughter lives and works fairly normally. She had taken her daughter to many places, including pagodas, for treatment, but says it did not help. But since the daughter began treatment at Mai Huong a week ago, she has been happier and smiling more often, says P.T.T. Her daughter rides her bike to the center everyday. Like most Mai Huong patients, the two mentioned above do not exhibit any dire signs or symptoms such as serious anger or hysterical outbursts, says Hoi. He says this kind of “milder” patient is not what one traditionally expects from psychiatric illness. He says this is a more modern variety of psychiatric problems associated with the stresses of modern life. But Hoi says that not only people with stress, psychological crises, and mental disorders come to the hospital, Mai Huong also treats people for drug abuse. Established in 1998, the state-owned center is the first and only hospital to provide outpatient psychiatric services alongside work-therapy as well as music and group activities. The services aim to encourage cooperation among doctors, patients and families. The most important thing, according to Mai Huong doctors and nurses, is the staff’s attitude. Whether they are in a good mood or not, they must smile and be gentle with their patients, doctors say. To them, the greatest challenge for Mai Huong is the lack of awareness of psychiatric illness in Vietnamese society. Doctors say there are many more who could benefit from treatment at Mai Huong, but they simply don’t know about it. The hospital has thus hosted conferences and launched a website www.maihuong.gov.vn where doctors post articles about the symptoms and treatment of psychiatric illness. The hospital also hosts a club for patients’ families to help them become more fully aware of their relatives’ illness in order to best support them. Source: Lao Dong

Another MSG-maker found polluting Vietnam river

South Korean monosodium glutamate maker Miwon Vietnam has been dumping wastewater into the Red River that runs through the capital city, police said Friday.

“We have found that Miwon, based in northern Phu Tho Province, has discharged wastewater into the Hong (Red) River through a substandard treatment system,” head of the province’s Environmental Police Bureau, Ngo Quang Thieu, told Thanh Nien Daily Friday. “The firm has confessed to releasing some 150 cubic meters of wastewater into the river each day since late last year,” he said, noting that the real volume may be higher. “The wastewater treatment system for the firm’s second production line is substandard,” he said. “But the firm has still put the line into operation since last November, and dumped wastewater into the Red River through it.” Miwon has explained that the system is in a trial operation stage, Thieu said. “However, wastewater discharge through the system is illegal.” “We have collected samples of the wastewater and sent them to relevant agencies for analysis,” he noted. “Our firm has discharged wastewater into the river via a wastewater treatment system, which is operating on a trial basis and facing some problems,” an official from Miwon Vietnam, who declined to be named, told Thanh Nien Daily Friday. However, the discharge has not seriously affected the river’s water quality, and only caused some foul odor, he said. Miwon Vietnam signed a contract with the Center for Clean Water and Environment Technology Transfer in Hanoi to build the wastewater treatment system with an investment of VND7.8 billion (US$472,000) when the firm started to build the second production line two years ago, he noted. “But the system is substandard, and has had some problems, and we have already terminated the contract with the center, and hired another consultant,” he said. Miwon Vietnam, which has an annual capacity of 30,000 tons of MSG, is trying to find ways to deal with the issue, but it needs at least 7-10 days, he said. The news about dumping effluents comes in the wake of a major pollution scandal featuring Taiwanese MSG-maker Vedan Vietnam in southern Dong Nai Province, which was caught dumping around 105,600 cubic meters of untreated wastewater to the province’s Thi Vai River. Vedan is facing suspension of its operations and stiff fines for evading payment of environmental fees for many years. Reported by Bao Van

Hush up test results at your peril, dairy firms told

A lady selecting milk at the Co-op Mart Supermarket in District 1. The health ministry has warned companies they could lose their business license and face stringent action.

Several dairy firms have kept silent about products that had tested positive for melamine contamination, inspectors said at a meeting Saturday, drawing a sharp warning from the Ministry of Health. Deputy Minister of Health Cao Minh Quang said the ministry would revoke the licenses and take stringent action against dairy firms that tried to cover up melamine-contamination test results. He asked milk importers to send the samples of their products to 22 standard labs in the nation to ascertain if they had been contaminated with melamine. Melamine, a chemical compound used in the manufacture of plastic, makes milk appear rich in protein. No national or international authority has approved the use of melamine for human consumption. The labs are also required to report test results to the Ministry of Health at the earliest, Quang said at a meeting of various inspection agencies in Ho Chi Minh City Saturday. The meeting, held in the context of the tainted milk scandal deepening in China and intensified nationwide inspection in Vietnam, brought together the Ministry of Health’s inspection team in HCMC, the city health watchdog, and other agencies concerned. After sending their products for examination, several dairy firms had kept silent about test results proving their products were contaminated with melamine, inspectors said at the meeting. Deputy Minister Quang warned the ministry would brook no cover-up in this regard. He warned that if any surprise or random inspection unearthed this wrongdoing, the ministry would withdraw the licenses of violating businesses and consider further penalties against them. Police to swing into action The Ministry of Health would recommend that the central police force launch an investigation into the dubious milk distribution activities of two dairy companies (whose names have not been released), said Tran Quang Trung, chief of the health ministry’s inspection department. The two companies said they had imported a large amount of milk from China and would re-export the consignment to other countries. However they did not reveal the destinations, Trung said. An inspection conducted by the Hanoi Health Department Saturday found at least 500 stores in Ha Dong market selling candies and cookies without any usage-guidance labels in Vietnamese. The sellers also failed to present documents proving the origins of their products. Several samples of candy and cookies were seized for further analysis, inspectors said. Melamine concentration limit to be announced soon Deputy Minister Quang also said at the meeting that the ministry was planning to make public the permissible concentration of melamine in dairy products next week. The Ministry of Health’s Food Administration last Thursday officially announced a list of 18 products found contaminated with melamine. While Vietnam has no regulation about the concentration level at which melamine would be poisonous for consumption, any dairy product containing the substance would be subject to recall, Quang said. So far multi-disciplinary inspection teams have recalled around 1,000 tons of melamine-contaminated dairy products nationwide with 300 tons earmarked for destruction. Three companies told to destroy their melamine-tainted products were Hanoimilk in the capital city, and Kim An and A Chau in HCMC. The ministry would ensure the process of recalling and destroying melamine-contaminated products are carried out properly, Quang said. The Ministry of Education and Training issued a dispatch Saturday instructing schools nationwide to ensure that no identified melamine-contaminated dairy products are used, and to rush to the hospital any student suspected of contracting melamine-related problems. Vinamilk, the top Vietnamese dairy firm, Saturday signed a commitment that it would keep a close eye on the materials it imports and would ensure that its products met all safety standards. IMPORT FREEZE EXPANDS ■ Many countries around the globe have decided to suspend imports of Chinese milk products or to withdraw them from their market, AFP reports. ■ In the Asia-Pacific region, two products sold under the Yili and Mengniu lebels and brought into the Philippines illegally have been taken off shop shelves after the discovery of traces of melamine in Chinese milk. ■ Other Asian countries have also banned imports of Chinese milk products, some of them extending the ban to all products containing milk, including chocolate. ■ In other countries in Africa, Europe, and America, the governments have also banned imports on Chinese milk-related products and advised people not to eat food made with Chinese dairy products. Reported by Thanh Tung - Thuy Anh

Pollution blamed for spate of cancer deaths in northern city

Cancer patient Bui Ngoc Vo is being cared for by his wife at their home in Thuy Nguyen District in Hai Phong City’s Minh Duc Town. Bui Ngoc Vo left hospital recently to spend his last days battling throat cancer in his home in the northern city of Hai Phong.

Vo looks set to be another cancer statistic from Thuy Nguyen District’s Minh Duc Town, where 70 percent of deaths are caused by cancer. The town’s residents are terrified by the increasing number of cancer-related deaths, believed to be caused by pollution from local industry. In 2006, the city’s Health Department conducted a mortality survey in Minh Duc Town and found 40 out of 142 deaths between 2004 and 2006 were caused by cancer, accounting for a rate of 28 percent. The department also said in the first six months of 2006, the rate had risen to more than 55 percent. Over the past two years, between 20 and 30 people have died from cancer each year, pushing the rate up to 70 percent of the town’s death toll, Minh Duc Town People’s Committee Chairman Le Van Hien said. Hien said most of the cancer victims were young locals, who were diagnosed with serious cancer in their soft palates, stomachs, livers and lungs. Some people, who had been young and healthy, died within a few months of being diagnosed, he said. Latest cases Vo could not walk or speak when Thanh Nien visited his home recently. His throat had swelled and he was looking skeletal. The smoke stack at Hai Phong Cement Company pumping waste into the air. “He can’t even swallow a spoonful of soup,” said his wife Cao Thi Pham. “I don’t know how many more days he can live.” Pham said she and her husband used to work at a nearby stone quarry to support their family of five. “Early this year, he complained of a sore throat before being diagnosed with throat cancer,” she said. She also said many of her neighbors, who were previously healthy people, had suddenly sickened and died from cancer. Pham Thi Hien from Minh Duc Town’s Quyet Tam Village said she was diagnosed with endometrial cancer after giving birth earlier this year and suffering continuous bleeding. The woman’s reproductive organs were removed to prevent the spread of cancer to other organs. Hien’s husband, Nguyen Van Trung, said his father died of liver cancer two months ago. Tainted town Most local officials and residents blamed the deadly diseases on environmental pollution from industrial firms in the town. However, Hai Phong Health Department did not confirm the cause in a recent report on the deaths. In 2005, the city’s Department of Science and Technology conducted research which found air pollution in Hai Phong was up to 12 times higher than the allowed level in some places. The department also found high concentrations of arsenic, a potent poison, in the underground water. Local residents also complain of the fumes emanating from cement companies Chinfon and Hai Phong. Chinfon Cement Company has been emitting exhaust gases only at night following complaints but the Hai Phong Cement Company still pollutes the air day and night, a resident said. “Most of the locals don’t have white shirts because they easily get dirty from dust in the air,” said another resident. “We can’t dry clothes outside for the same reason.” Locals also said many other firms had caused serious pollution in the area, including Pha Rung Shipyard, Minh Duc Chemical Factory and Trang Kenh Coal Factory. “Trang Kenh Coal Factory is supposed to be the first cause of pollution,” an official from Minh Duc Town’s People Committee, who asked to remain anonymous, said. “You can sneeze all day if you accidentally inhale fumes from the factory. “All workers there had unhealthy-looked skin and I am afraid that they won’t survive for long,” she said. She also named some of the ex-workers there who had cancer or who had already died. The trucks that carried materials and products for those firms have also contributed to the town’s pollution problem. Nga from the town’s Quyet Hung residential area said, “My baby always has a runny nose, a cough and tears because of the dusty street.” Residents also said some of them had tried to block the street with rocks but the truck drivers removed them and continued driving. In 2007, local authorities built a system to supply fresh water, but not all residents benefited. Many of them still use rainwater or underground well water, which could be tainted by the air and water pollution. Reported by Luu Quang Pho