The Hospital for Tropical Diseases in HCM City ( tuoitre.vn)
HCM City (VNA) - Ho Chi Minh City’s Hospital for Tropical Diseases has reported that the unit has received and treated two imported cases of severe malaria.
These are the first cases of malaria recorded in the city in recent years.
One of the two patients is a 24-year-old Vietnamese student returned from Cameroon. The another is a 63-year-old Chinese man, who travelled to the city from Ivory Coast.
According to doctor Ho Dang Trung Nghia, Head of the hospital’s Department of Infectious Diseases, both patients came from Africa where malaria is still an endemic.
In recent years, Vietnam has recorded a decreasing number of malaria cases. Some cases are occasionally reported in the southern province of Binh Phuoc and some Central Highlands provinces. Every year, the HCM City Hospital for Tropical Disease also receives a number of patients who returned from abroad, mainly from Africa.
Nghia recommends that people who return from malaria-endemic areas such as Laos, Cambodia, and Africa or those who have had malaria before, need to go to medical facilities for examination and testing if they have a fever./.
Vietnam has been making great strides to move from malaria control towards elimination of the disease, but increasing malaria in disadvantaged areas is threatening the country’s overall progress.
The southern province of Binh Phuoc has recorded 973 malaria cases in the first half of the year, up by 66 percent year-on-year, including one death, reported by the provincial Department of Health on July 16.
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Vietnam recorded 4,813 malaria cases in 2018, down 70.16 percent from 2009, it was reported at a conference on malaria control in border areas held in the Central Highlands of Dak Lak on April 18.
Vietnam is expected to put an end to Plasmodium falciparum malaria parasite by 2025, towards eliminating all species of malaria by 2030 as recommended by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
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After more than three weeks of intensive treatment, the patient's pneumonia improved, breathing stabilised, sedation was reduced, and the breathing tube was removed. He is now conscious, able to eat orally, and in recovery.
The Hospital for Tropical Diseases in HCM City ( tuoitre.vn) 
