National influenza A (H1N1) total up to 26, world steps up fight

An influenza A (H1 N1) patient is treated at the National Institute of Infectious and Tropical Diseases. The Mekong Delta reported its first influenza A (H1N1) case Friday as a teenager in Tien Giang Province tested positive for the virus, adding to Thursday’s national tally of 25 cases.

Blood tests done by the Ho Chi Minh City Pasteur Institute on the 14- year-old overseas Vietnamese, identified only as Nguyen Tran D. C., showed the teen carrying the virus. The patient was admitted to Tien Giang General Hospital on Wednesday with high fever, but escaped later in afternoon and had to be brought back on Thursday after the results. A relative, identified as Tran Chanh D. of the same age, has also been isolated for treatment at the hospital, pending tests, after showing symptoms of high fever and coughing Friday. The Tien Giang Health Department has listed 15 people who have had physical contact with the patient since the latter’s arrival at Tan Son Nhat International Airport last week. Two of them had left the province on a trip Friday. The department has taken blood samples from all the patient’s family members for testing. Before the case in Tien Giang, the Ministry of Health on Thursday reported 25 patients had been detected with the disease thus far, most of them people coming home from the US. The number includes one person detected with the virus in Hanoi and others in Ho Chi Minh City. Officials on Friday found 13 passengers at the Tan Son Nhat International Airport arriving with body temperatures above 38 degrees Celsius, and quarantined them in different hospitals in the city, pending test results. Eight patients in the city have recovered and been discharged since the first case of the virus was found on May 31, the city Health Department said Friday. The number of cases in Vietnam is still small, said department director Nguyen Van Chau, stressing that the country will continue observing individual cases instead of switching to community observation. Response to global alert Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung on Friday called an urgent meeting with officials from the Health Ministry, saying the country should “try its best and take suitable measures to prevent a flu epidemic [in the country].” The PM asked the ministry to keep the general public constantly informed of the latest developments regarding the flu and keep abreast of international action taken to contain the disease. His orders came one day after the World Health Organization (WHO) raised the influenza A (H1N1) threat to six, the highest level, branding it a global pandemic on Thursday. Tien Giang on Friday announced it will spend another VND5 billion (US$281,000) on measures to contain the disease while Nghe An Province in the north-central region added VND7 billion for the purpose, Vietnam News Agency reported. Health officials in Thai Binh Province not far from Hanoi have prepared enough medicines for 4,400 patients with the virus, they said. Residents in Nam Dinh Province, also in the north, have been asked to call two hotline numbers 0350.3631.418 and 0350.3636.668 for instructions related to the disease. Health minister Nguyen Quoc Trieu expressed concern that some people with the virus but showing no symptoms would refuse to limit physical contact with others and thus threaten to spread the disease. Nguyen Tran Hien, head of the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology, said the influenza A pandemic was is still at a “moderate” level worldwide, but warned it spreads around 15 percent faster than normal flu. Vietnam is facing the threat that H1N1 can combine with the H5N1 bird flu virus, or the normal flu to form a mutant that is more infectious, Hien said. He said the virus strain is completely new and hard for communities to gain immunity against. Vaccine in the making The influenza A virus has so far infected almost 30,000 people in 74 countries and territories and claimed 145 lives since it was first detected in Mexico in April, according to WHO figures. Mexico has been worst hit with its death toll rising up to 109 of 6,294 infections recorded this far proving fatal. The US comes next with 27 deaths out of 13,217 cases reported. As governments stepped up precautions after the pandemic announcement, Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis said Friday it has completed the first batch of vaccine for pre-clinical trials, AFP reported. The batch has been completed successfully “weeks ahead of expectations,” the company said in a statement. Novartis said it hopes to start trials on patients in July and gain a license soon after, adding that more than 30 governments had asked for the “vaccine ingredients,” according to the report. British GlaxoSmithKline also said Friday it could produce a vaccine in four to six months and that it was ready to convert a donation of 50 million doses of vaccine against H5N1 bird flu for the WHO to swine flu doses. Director General Margaret Chan of the UN agency said the flu pandemic declaration, the first one in four decades, should not spark panic and does not mean the H1N1 death toll would rise sharply. The alert “means that the world is moving into the early days of its first influenza pandemic in the 21st century,” AFP cited Chan as saying. The southern hemisphere is currently heading into winter and the height of its flu season. Northern hemisphere countries could expect to see a swine flu surge when their winter starts later, it said. Australia, the worst hit in the Asia-Pacific region, was considering adopting powers to cancel sports events, restrict travel and even shut national borders, although officials stressed extreme measures are unlikely. In Hong Kong, which was hit hard by the 2003 SARS outbreak, authorities closed all primary schools after a group of children caught the virus. Israel’s health ministry has ordered the stocking of vaccines to inoculate up to 25 percent of the country’s 7.2 million population while Canada is investigating possible swine flu outbreaks among aboriginal communities. Britain is Europe’s worst hit country with 909 recorded cases, but the total has risen significantly in recent days. In Spain, where there are 488 confirmed cases, Health Minister Trinidad Jimenez has called for calm after WHO raised its alert, saying that the symptoms were “slight” and the flu could be easily treated. France and Germany, where there are 80 and 95 cases respectively, also said they are not changing their alert levels. Source: TN, Agencies

Food safety at ‘alarmingly’ low levels

A roadside bun rieu (crab paste noodle soup) eatery in Ho Chi Minh City. Calling for new laws and more money to enforce rules, National Assembly (NA) members agreed at a meeting Wednesday that food safety measures in Vietnam are atrocious.

“Food safety regulations are being violated at an alarming rate in every sector: cultivation, husbandry, processing, and trade,” said representative Duong Kim Anh from Tra Vinh Province. She said the Health Ministry was responsible for the problems, and added that she was worried tainted meals were showing up on the tables of local families. Representative Dang Thi Nga of Lam Dong Province said local agencies knew about the violations but were doing nothing about it. Nguyen Thi Hoa, a delegate from Hanoi, said regulations needed to state much more clearly and exactly what local agencies’ responsibilities were on the issue. Many deputies agreed with Hoa and said the government needed to expedite the drafting of new law on food safety and hygiene. Hoa also proposed stricter punishments for food safety violations, arguing that current fines were too low to act as a deterrent. She said the fine for trading unsafe vegetables was VND100,000- 300,000 (US$5.5-16.70) and that those caught trading less than 5 kilograms of banned pesticides were fined only VND200,000-500,000 ($11- 27.80). Strange fruit Dang Vu Minh, chairman of the assembly’s Science, Technology and Environmental Committee, said Vietnam produces an average of 11.5 million tons of vegetables per year. But he said only 8.5 percent of the nation’s vegetable fields could be considered safe, according to government regulations on pesticide use, packaging and clean fertilizer. He said the rate for safe fruit orchards was just 20 percent. Between 2007 and 2008, more than 90 percent of all fresh fruits and vegetables sampled b government agencies met food safety standards. However, in large cities like Ho Chi Minh City, agencies can monitor only 20-30 percent of fresh vegetables on the market, he said. In the second half of 2008, nearly 11.7 percent of vegetable samples taken from Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, Tien Giang and Vinh Phuc provinces, or 48 of 412 samples, were found to have pesticide residues exceeding permissible levels. The rate among fruit samples was 15.2 percent, or 15 out of 99. The country monitored only 58.1 percent of the total slaughtered cattle and fowl over the 2007-2008 period, down from 61.8 percent in 2004-2006. Only 617 cattle and poultry slaughtering establishments have been monitored this year, while 16,512 small establishments have gone unchecked. In 2008, 11.08 percent of meat and raw meat products were found to contain chemical residues, Minh said, adding that it was the highest level in the last five years. Only 11.2 percent of food processing and vending establishments met food safety requirements and hygiene in 2008. Food poisoning killed 116 people in 2007 and 2008. Show me the money Delegate Truong Thi Thu Hang proposed that the government increase per capita investment in food management to VND9,000 ($0.50) a year, nearly nine times the current rate. “It may be a burden to the state budget, especially in the difficult economic stage we’re going through now, but we should be determined toward having safe food resources for the health of the community and the future generation,” she said. A recent government report said some VND329 billion ($18.3 million) in state funds had been spent on managing the implementation of food safety and hygiene regulations between 2004 and 2008. The investment equals 1/19 of the money Thailand spends per capita on the same issue, and 1/136 of the US Food and Drug Administration budget. Deputy Anh said the country has focused more on food safety for exports rather than on the domestic market. Many border gates don’t have enough equipment to test imported food products properly and surveillance is mainly done by the five senses of the custom officers on duty, she said. Dodging bullets Minister of Health Nguyen Quoc Trieu said local agencies must take responsibility as stipulated by the Food Safety and Hygiene Ordinance. Agency leaders will have to take the greatest responsibility and the government will evaluate the job they have done, he said. Each individual must do their job and they will be evaluated to produce better results in the future, he said. Reported by Bao Van

Amphetamine use on the rise in Vietnam: conference

The use of amphetamines by young people is on the rise in Vietnam while the country has no rehabilitation centers catering to addicts of the stimulant, experts warn.

Simon Baldwin of the Family Health International said a changing socioeconomic environment had pushed many local youths into using drugs as the face of daily life changes ever more rapidly. Moreover, spillover from the Golden Triangle, eastern Asia's major opium-producing region in the mountains of Myanmar, Laos, Thailand and even Vietnam, had made drug use more common in the country. He was speaking at the country’s first-ever international conference on the awareness and prevention of amphetamine abuse. Participants at the conference in Ho Chi Minh City Friday said Vietnam had no rehabilitation center specializing in amphetamine addiction. Le Tien Trung from the Ministry of Public Security said most amphetamine users that had been caught by police in Vietnam were young people, including university and high school students. Trung also said a large portion of users were long-distance drivers and taxi drivers who use the drug to stay awake through the night. Some middle-aged women and students also use the drug to lose weight or to stay awake to study, he said. He said the most common amphetamines seized were ecstasy (MDMA or 3,4- methylenedioxymethamphetamine) and methamphetamine. Methamphetamine is regularly smuggled into Vietnam from the Golden Triangle both by road and plane, while the ecstasy found here usually originated in Hong Kong, Macau, Northern Europe, the US, Japan, Taiwan or Australia, said Trung. He also said some shipments of ecstasy pills had entered Vietnam via airmail. In 2008, police seized around 200,000 methamphetamine tablets, not including the average annual seizure of 8,000-10,000 ecstasy tablets. In a huge haul on Tuesday the traffic police in the central province of Thanh Hoa caught a Lao man carrying nearly 500,000 ecstasy pills in his car destined for drug users in Vietnam. Nguyen Thi Van of the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs’ Anti-Social Evils Bureau said most amphetamine users were from big cities and the children of wealthy families. “A methamphetamine pill sells for between VND200,000 ($11) and VND500,000 ($28). The drugs are often used in bars, karaoke lounges and dance clubs,” she said. Trung warned that amphetamine abuse often proved fatal by way of traffic accidents. “Many young speed users speed on their motorbikes or have sex randomly. Many have been caught doing so during raids on bars and dance clubs,” he said, adding that such behavior could easily facilitate the spread of dangerous diseases. Nick Thompson of the John Hopkins University in the US told the conference that the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime reported that around 25 million people worldwide were using amphetamines. An increase of amphetamine users has led to the establishment of many rehabilitation centers, he said. Thailand has opened a total of 84 amphetamine rehab centers and is scheduled to open 19 more in the next five years. Laos plans to open two more amphetamine rehab centers from the current nine, while Cambodia is expected to open five more from its current 14 in the next five years. Early this year, the Ministry of Public Security signed an agreement with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime to pilot a project to prepare strategies for the prevention of illicit amphetamine use in Southeast Asia. The $300,000-project will be carried out in Vietnam through 2011. Reported by Thanh Tung

Japanese doctor to hold charity party next week in HCMC

Japanese ophthalmologist and philantropist Dr. Hattori Tadashi and Royal Trans Co. Ltd. will organize the second annual charity party in Ho Chi Minh City next Friday to raise funds for his volunteer work in Vietnam.

The event will take place on June 5 from 7 p.m.-10 p.m. at the Windsor Plaza Hotel in HCMC. Organizers hope to double the US$10,000 they raised last year, with proceeds going to Dr. Hattori’s patients and the Prevention of Blindness Association in Vietnam. Since 2002, Dr. Hattori has conducted eye treatment and surgeries for more than 7,000 Vietnamese patients nationwide. To make a donation or purchase tickets for Friday’s party, contact Wendy Tour at Sheraton Hotel at 08-3821 9451; Yamaneko Restaurant at 13/1 Le Thanh Ton, Dist 1 or Royal Trans Co.,Ltd at 9A Thi Sach, Dist 1 at 08-3823 9566 Reported by Vinh Bao

Vietnam records first swine flu case

Vietnam has recorded its first case of swine flu after a man tested positive for the virus, the health ministry said Sunday.

"It is the first patient of the virus A(H1N1) in Vietnam," Nguyen Huy Nga, the ministry's spokesman, told AFP, adding the case was "confirmed officially by our ministry this morning." An initial test conducted Saturday at the tropical diseases hospital in southern Ho Chi Minh City was positive, Phan Van Tu, a doctor with the city's Pasteur Institute, told AFP earlier. The patient was in a stable condition with a slight fever, Tu added. Local television reported that the patient is a 23-year-old student who returned home early last week from the United States via Hong Kong. Emergence of the virus in Vietnam was "highly likely" given its international travel links, Shelaye Boothey, a spokeswoman for the World Health Organization (WHO), told AFP. "They've had some good detection measures in place," she said. Vietnam has been monitoring the health of passengers arriving at its airports in a bid to detect swine flu. Swine flu was first detected last month in the United States and Mexico. In its latest update the WHO said 53 countries have reported 15,510 cases of swine flu, including 99 deaths. Source: AFP