VietNamNet Bridge – A hot spell has hit HCM City, filling hospital with patients and cafes and restaurants with customers.

The HCM City-based Paediatrics Hospital No1 is filled with children suffering from respiratory diseases due to the prolonged heat wave and high humidity.

Outdoor temperatures have been ranging from 35 to 37 degrees Centigrade, while the humidity hits 75 to 85 per cent.

Le Thi Xuan Lan, a meteorologist with the Southern Hydrological and Meteorological Station, was quoted by Tuoi tre (Youth) newspaper as saying that high temperatures were not abnormal in May, but humidity was usually only 30 to 40 per cent.

Lan said residents were hoping continuous rains for three or four days would arrive and cool the city down.

At the city's Nhi Dong 1 Pediatric Hospital, so many children have been hospitalised that beds are crammed with three to four children.

Many parents take their children out of hospital rooms to lie in cool hallways.

Some parents have been seen lying on the tiled floors under the beds.

Quan, a father taking care of his son at the hospital, told Tuoi tre that it was too hot inside the hospital room for his son.

"Staying inside that crowded room made him cry unceasingly," Quan said while cooling his son with a water-soaked towel.

Meanwhile, Nguyen Thanh Vinh, a doctor with the HCM City Ear, Nose and Throat Hospital, told Tuoi tre that lots of patients had rhinitis and acute sinusitis.

He advised people against immersing their body too long in swimming pools, drinking or eating cold or iced foods and drinks, setting the air-conditioner temperature too low or taking too many baths a day.

Instead, they are advised to take in sufficient water, especially fruit juice, and eat highly digestible foods.

The indoor temperature of an air-conditioned room should not more than six to eight degrees different from the outdoor temperature.

VNS