Shiloh
Editor, Senior Moderator
Source: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=88890
VIETNAM: Lessons learned from SARS, bird flu, H1N1
HANOI, 22 April 2010 (IRIN) - Several years ago, when patients arrived at hospital with pneumonia that did not respond to standard antibiotics, doctors in Vietnam began to get scared.
Attacking perfectly healthy people, it was obvious that this was no ordinary illness. Patients, as well as health workers caring for them, were dying as epidemiologists raced to identify what was causing the disease.
?We were in a panic,? Nguyen Trung Cap, who was working at the National Institute for Tropical and Infectious Diseases in Hanoi when severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) struck Vietnam in 2003.
?We did not know if we would wake up in the morning and see people still alive.?
But Vietnam did survive, and indeed it weathered more devastating diseases to come.
In 2004, avian influenza arrived, hitting Vietnam particularly hard.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), nearly 60 people in Vietnam had died of avian influenza as of 21 April, making Vietnam second only to Indonesia in terms of the number of human fatalities from the H5N1 virus.
When H1N1 influenza (popularly known as swine flu) emerged last year, Vietnam was hit yet again. But this time, say officials, it was prepared.
Early identification and quarantine measures helped curtail the spread of H1N1, officials say, reducing the number of people infected.
Disease surveillance...
VIETNAM: Lessons learned from SARS, bird flu, H1N1
HANOI, 22 April 2010 (IRIN) - Several years ago, when patients arrived at hospital with pneumonia that did not respond to standard antibiotics, doctors in Vietnam began to get scared.
Attacking perfectly healthy people, it was obvious that this was no ordinary illness. Patients, as well as health workers caring for them, were dying as epidemiologists raced to identify what was causing the disease.
?We were in a panic,? Nguyen Trung Cap, who was working at the National Institute for Tropical and Infectious Diseases in Hanoi when severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) struck Vietnam in 2003.
?We did not know if we would wake up in the morning and see people still alive.?
But Vietnam did survive, and indeed it weathered more devastating diseases to come.
In 2004, avian influenza arrived, hitting Vietnam particularly hard.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), nearly 60 people in Vietnam had died of avian influenza as of 21 April, making Vietnam second only to Indonesia in terms of the number of human fatalities from the H5N1 virus.
When H1N1 influenza (popularly known as swine flu) emerged last year, Vietnam was hit yet again. But this time, say officials, it was prepared.
Early identification and quarantine measures helped curtail the spread of H1N1, officials say, reducing the number of people infected.
Disease surveillance...