Ba Ria- Vung Tau province's Health Department hosted a conference on December 17 to seek experts' solutions to preventing and then eliminating malaria.
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Ba Ria- Vung Tau province's Health Department hosted a conference on December 17 to seek experts’ solutions to preventing and then eliminating malaria.
Doctors from the Institute of Mariology Parasitology and Entomology (IMPE) and Hospital for Tropical Diseases of Ho Chi Minh City, and officials from the Health Departments of Dak Lak, Binh Thuan, Binh Phuoc and Dong Nai provinces attended.
The number of malaria patients in Ba Ria- Vung Tau reduced remarkably by 96.93 percent, from 7,719 in 1992 when the locality was established to 178 in 2015.
Despite the achievement, the local Preventive Health Center raised the fact that malaria-affected areas, mostly rural and remote, are home to a large number of poor and ethnic minority people.
Inaccurate diagnosis of malaria has often been made at commune and district health centres, leading to late treatment for those contracted the disease, it said.
For its part, the provincial health sector has worked to fix these problems, saying it has intensified health communication campaigns, monitored affected areas, and increased funding for human resources working in the prevention and control of malaria.
According to IMPE Director Le Thanh Dong, the number of malaria sufferers in the country reduced from 43,700 in 2012 to 27,800 patients in 2014.
However, the number of malaria patients in the Southeastern and Central Highlands areas increased remarkably over the last six months of 2015 with 66.59 percent and 26.11 percent, respectively.
Dong pointed to a lack of preventive measures in localities which were once the malaria hotspots as well as the unenthusiastic response of local authorities and mass organisations in the prevention work.
Vietnam targets to completely eradicate the disease by 2030.
(Source: VNA)
