Ho Chi Minh City urgently responds to rabies amid fatality spike

According to the Ministry of Health, rabies killed 22 people in Vietnam over the January-February period, compared to 10 cases recorded from a year ago. The Ho Chi Minh City Pasteur Institute administered 4,813 rabies vaccinations in the same period, including 2,622 inoculations in February, far higher than the average of 2,100 per month in the first two months of 2023. The Ho Chi Minh City Hospital for Tropical Diseases has also recorded a sharp increase in rabies immunization, with 5,296 cases in the first two months of this year compared to 4,221 from a year earlier. WHO said dogs are the primary source of human rabies deaths, responsible for 99 percent of all transmissions to humans. As the disease progresses, patients may experience delirium, abnormal behavior, hallucinations, hydrophobia (fear of water), and insomnia before death, CDC stated.