HO CHI MINH CITY, Sept. 19 (Xinhua) -- The dengue fever season is peaking in Vietnam's southern region, with a sharp rise in incidence of the mosquito-borne disease in Ho Chi Minh City and the Mekong Delta, according to local health agencies.
In Ho Chi Minh City alone, the number of dengue fever cases spotted in August was 7,833, up 18 percent from July, local daily newspaper Vietnam News cited the municipal Center for Disease Control and Prevention as reporting on Thursday.
In the first eight months of this year, the number of infection cases in the city surged 142 percent year-on-year to 39,814.
Since the beginning of this year, an upsurge has also been reported in the Mekong Delta which has seen eight deaths, according to the newspaper.
As of Sept. 8, over 3,000 people from the delta's Dong Thap province had been diagnosed with dengue fever, up over 106 percent on-year, the provincial People's Committee announced on its website, citing the provincial Health Department's figures. Of the patients, two died.
Between January and August, dengue fever cases in Vietnam numbered 145,100, including 18 deaths, according to the country's General Statistics Office.
Most of Vietnamese dengue fever patients live in the country's southern region where weather conditions and local people's habit of storing rainwater in containers for domestic use create favorable conditions for the development of mosquitoes, the disease's transmitter, said local epidemiologists.
