On the afternoon of March 11, 2011, Dr. Nguyen Van Binh, director of the Department of Preventive Medicine (Ministry of Health) confirmed that H1N1 Influenza has spread widely in many provinces and cities in the whole country with lots of morbidity and mortality.
Dr. Nguyen Van Binh said that up to now the H1N1 infection has been recorded in 30 provinces and cities of the country, including seven deaths in six provinces. The cases of death from H1N1 have mainly occured in patients with chronic diseases, such as a history of diabetes, hypertension, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, etc.
The representative of the Department of Preventive Medicine also said that because the swine flu epidemic has been presently widespread in the community, only some typical cases have undergone the examination of medical waste for identifying H1N1 influenza, so there was no report on specific number of H1N1 influenza patient. However, the statistics showed that our country still records from 1.6 to 1.8 million cases of flu every year.
According to Dr. Binh, the weather is now cold and wet, which facilitates the development and spread of influenza A (H1N1) virus. People need to actively protect themselves from the disease; when symptoms such as coughing, sneezing, runny nose, etc. occur, wear a mask, cover mouth as coughing, don't spit indiscriminately and come to the medical facilities for timely treatment so as to avoid communicating the flu to relatives and communities. The state organs, enterprises, universities and schools take the initiative in monitoring the health of workers, pupils, students, and timely coordinate with grassroots health facilities in the implemention of control measures, especially pay more attention on pregnant women.
According to the announcement of the World Health Organization (WHO), the H1N1 pandemic has entered the post-pandemic period. In the past few months, swine flu has continually recorded in 64 countries and territories worldwide. The recent results of the global influenza surveillance points showed that among flu-positive samples, the H1N1 virus accounted for 63.6%. However, up to now, there has been no genetic variation of influenza A (H1N1) virus causing pandemic discovered yet.