Mystery Skin Disease Kills 19 In Vietnam

Mystery Skin Disease Kills 19 In Vietnam

Editor's Choice
Main Category: Infectious Diseases / Bacteria / Viruses
Also Included In: Dermatology
Article Date: 22 Apr 2012 - 9:00 PDT

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Article Opinions: 9 posts
A mystery skin infection, which has killed 19 people and affected hundreds, has left Vietnamese health authorities baffled. Vietnam is now asking for help from abroad to find out what exactly this disease is, what the cause is, and how to effectively treat it and stem its spread. Over 170 cases have been reported in Quang Ngai province, in the center of the country.

Patients start off with a high fever, loss of appetite, and a rash on the soles of their feet and palms of their hands. They can suffer liver problems, and eventually multiple organ failure. Local media inform that approximately 10% of infected people suffer from serious liver disorder.

Despite what it describes as extensive investigations, the country's Health Ministry does not know what the cause of the infection is.

Thanh Long, Vietnam's Deputy Health Minister, said:

"This disease is challenging as we have not identified the root causes. If it is just an external skin disease why is it causing deaths and failures inside internal organs?"

The baffling skin infection initially affected people last year, but appeared to die out. Last month, however, it surfaced again.

Once the infection has set in, it is extremely difficult to treat effectively. If patients are treated early on, they have a good chance of being cured, health authorities inform.

According to local media, chemicals are suspected as the most likely culprits. However, laboratory tests carried out by the health ministry have come to a dead end. In another local report, further tests should provide some results within the next ten days.

The Vietnamese government is asking the US CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) as well as WHO (World Health Organization) to help find out what the cause might be.

Nearly 100 people are currently in hospital, being treated for this mystery disease - ten of them are described as "critical". Hospitals inform that those with milder signs and symptoms can be treated at home.

Twenty-nine patients who were effectively treated, have become ill again with the same symptoms.

Tarik Jarasevic, of WHO, in an interview with CBS, said:

"WHO is in contact with the Ministry of Health about this event and is ready to provide technical support. We are not aware of any reports of similar symptoms elsewhere in Viet Nam. The reports would suggest that the incident is localized and restricted to Ba To district."

Jarasevic added that, according to evidence so far, this is not a human-to-human transmissible disease.

The CDC says it has not yet received a formal request for help from Vietnamese authorities.

Written by Christian Nordqvist
Copyright: Medical News Today
Not to be reproduced without permission of Medical News Today

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Visitor Opinions In Chronological Order (9)

Re: Vietnam mystery illness?

posted by sakara on 22 Apr 2012 at 9:41 am

Either leftover agent orange from the war---or some contaminated Chinese food?

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Enterovirus 71

posted by Ari on 22 Apr 2012 at 10:20 am

Sounds like enterovirus 71.
Must be related to it.

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agent orange

posted by nemo on 22 Apr 2012 at 10:33 am

American GIs still dying from this.

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viet nam vets need help too

posted by Harold Smith on 22 Apr 2012 at 10:41 am

I will be suprised if the US gov. will help the people in VietNam when they won't help VietNam Vets like myself and many others who have all kinds of skin problems because of agent orange.

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oncentrated pockets of agent orange - mystery illness in Vietnam?

posted by Robert Therrien on 22 Apr 2012 at 10:49 am

My guess is that these people are now running into concentrated pockets of agent orange. Ask a Vietnam Veteran, Oh wait you can't as most of those exposed have died already!

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Sounds like an allergic reaction

posted by Zahdio on 22 Apr 2012 at 10:51 am

Just my non-medical opinion, but it sounds like these people are ingesting or are being exposed to something which may cause an allergic reaction. Once the initial symptoms have gone away, they return to the cause once again.

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Good Job - Mystery illness in Vietnam

posted by Charles Cundiff on 22 Apr 2012 at 11:02 am

Well written for the lay person.

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CDC , WHO

posted by Mark Fossati on 22 Apr 2012 at 11:15 am

With this kind of impact I am shocked the CDC should be on this,
This sounds like a ivig bacterial breakdown from a external source perhaps water and or soil.

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use of agent orange in Quang Ngai province

posted by Charles Linebarger on 22 Apr 2012 at 11:21 am

I've never followed the debate on the side effects of herbicides during the war in Vietnam but mention of a skin disease made me look up a couple of things on Bing, Agent Orange was used in the war, look up the article on line, with horrible side effects. But my point is where this disease is occurring, so I quote from Wickepeadia article, one line related to this province and the use of this dioxin rich poison; "For example, in Quang Ngai province, 85% of the crop lands were scheduled to be destroyed in 1970 alone. Widespread famine occurred as a result, leaving hundreds of thousands of people malnourished or starving.[33]" That all happened in the 1960's but the dioxins in agent orange pretty much cry out for examination here. It's a seasonal disease in a landscape extremely compromised 40 years ago with powerful herbicides at many many times their recommended dose. Why just this province, other provinces were also heavily poluted with this dioxin during the war. Will t his disease appear in them also? It is a subject that I imagine would discomfit the US government, and me, I still call SAIGON Saigon. But if if we created this 40 years after the fact, it's a scary note on the dangers of modern non-nuclear weapons, so-called safer conventional weapons. This is not about our effort to save South Vietnam from the North's invasion it is about science, medicine and ultimately justice, blind justice as the famous statue of the blindfolded justice personifies. The truth should not look at who is before it only what is before it.

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