VietNamNet Bridge - From early January, Hanoi recorded 98 cases of typhus, suspected of measles, of which 30 cases were positive for measles.

In December 2013, the city discovered 10 cases of measles. Therefore, the total number of measles cases in the city has reach 40 so far.

The patients came from 36 wards of nine districts.

Most of the patients are children under 5 years old (78 percent), of which children under 1 year old accounted for nearly 58 percent. The youngest patient is 6 months old and the eldest is 31 years old.

According to Mr. Nguyen Nhat Cam, director of the Hanoi Center for Preventive Medicine, 40 percent of the patients had not been previously vaccinated against measles; more than 12 percent of cases had received one dose of vaccine before one year old. The rest are adults who did not remember their immunization history.

The Central Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology is investigating the death of a 7-month-old baby in Dong Anh district, Hanoi who is suspected to catch measles.

According to a report by the Ministry of Health, the measles epidemic also appeared in the northern mountainous provinces of Son La (87 cases), Yen Bai (65 cases) and Lao Cai (117 cases) during the Lunar New Year.

Measles usually attacks children between 6 months and 5 years old, the rate of complications is 1 in 1,000 cases. People who have had measles once rarely catch it again because the body becomes immune to the disease.

Since the implementation of EPI (expanded program on immunization), the measles vaccine has proved very effective and this disease nearly disappeared in Vietnam recently. But since 2009, the disease appeared among adults. Most of them had not been vaccinated against measles and had not caught this disease and some had been vaccinated.

Since 2010, children of 18 months old or older--up to 6 years old, have been vaccinated against measles with the second dose. The first dose is provided for children at 9-11 months of age.

Cam Quyen