High blood pressure sufferers go untreated

Viet Nam National Heart Association's website vnha.org.vn says about 90 per cent of people diagnosed with hypertension, or high blood pressure as it is commonly known, receive no treatment.

This is despite the fact that about 25 per cent of adults have the ailment, which can be life threatening.

The website was designed to enhance people's sense of preventing from hypertension.

Second child dies of skin disease from unknown cause

A patient suffers injuries in his hands and feet in Quang Ngai Province. (Photo: VNE)

Four-year-old Pham Van Thuan died in Quang Ngai Province Monday after suffering palmoplantar keratoderma, which is characterized by an even, thick, symmetric hyperkeratosis over the whole of the palm and sole.

Following a similar case that happened to an under-10-year-old child last year, Thuan was the second child in the province to have died of the skin disease for which doctors have yet to find the cause, VnExpress newswire quoted Nguyen Xuan Men, deputy director of the provincial Health Department, as saying.

The boy, of Ba Dien Commune, mountainous Ba To District, was admitted to Quang Ngai General Hospital on December 31 after developing palmoplantar keratoderma, ulcers on the hands and feet, and serious liver function disorder, doctors said.

On January 2, Thuan was transferred to the Da Nang General Hospital but he died after one day of treatment.

As of January 4, 98 people, including 25 children, have suffered from the skin disease, the department reported.

In December 2011 alone, 11 children under 10 were hospitalized with ulcers in their hands, feet, mouths, backs and abdomens. Most of them were in poor health condition and suffered from liver function disorder.

The department has ordered the Ba To Health Center to treat patients in accordance with the instructions from the Quy Hoa National Leprosy Dermatology Hospital in Binh Dinh Province.

The center must transfer all patients in critical condition to that hospital or the Quang Ngai General Hospital, where they will be given free meals, the department said.

On December 26-27, 2011, the Quang Ngai health authorities have given medical checkups and provided medicines to 300 people in Ba Dien Commune, where the skin disease broke out. Medical workers also sprayed antiseptic chemicals in the commune.

 “Though the health sector has yet to identify the cause of the skin disease, everybody should not worry excessively. We are continuing with our investigation and discovering some factors that might give rise to the disease, such as pesticide, fertilizer, and chemicals that are being used locally,” Dr. Tran Hau Khang, director of the National Hospital of Dermatology and Venereology, told VnExpress.

Doctors should continue treating patients under the hospital’s instructions, including requesting patients to spend more time for resting, prescribing them with vitamins of the B group, Zn supplements, suitable ointment, liver tonics, or applying transfusion to patients with liver injuries, he said.

President urges trade unions to protect workers

President Truong Tan Sang applauded the Viet Nam General Confederation of Labour (VGCL) for its efforts to protect the rights of workers nationwide and raise awareness among workers about Government and Party policies at the 8th VGCL Executive Committee conference held yesterday, Jan 5.

Conference participants agreed that the labour confederation had successfully implemented all the resolutions passed at the 10th National Congress of Vietnamese Trade Unions. Trade unions at all levels had launched many diverse programmes to attract workers in all sectors and accurately reflected their concerns and aspirations to the Party and Government, they said.

Members also discussed the problems and challenges facing workers nationwide. In some sectors, they have not been able to catch up with new technologies and improve working methods according to international standards. In many areas, workers are also subjected to inadequate working and living conditions and the relationships between employees and employers continue to pose many problems.

President Sang instructed the unions at all levels to continue studying and implementing all Party resolutions related to the working class. They must also work harder to protect the rights of members, workers and contribute to building Government and Party policies that could further benefit the working class, he said.

Hanoi taxi sandwiched between wall and street pole

A KIA Morning taxi was found sandwiched between a brick wall of the Vietnam Fine Arts Museum and an electricity pole at 2am on Thursday in Hanoi’s Cao Ba Quat Street.

Van, a local resident, said she was sleeping when she heard a high-pitched screeching noise of brakes on the street, followed by a loud crash and glass breaking sounds.

“I thought two cars had crashed and went back to sleep. This morning, when I opened the door, I saw this taxi clamped between the electricity pole and the wall,” she said.

The car was seriously damaged. Two of the front tires were blown. The rear end was broken and the whole light system and rear mirror lay in pieces on the ground.

The taxi was tightly jammed in the spot and a few people could not push it out with their hands.

At 12pm the same day, a rescue truck was sent to tow the taxi away.

According to what was left at the scene, the taxi must have been rear-ended by another car, whose driver quickly fled after causing the accident.

Police are making further investigation.

Vietnam seeks Japanese help in cargo ship sinking

Minister of Transport Dinh La Thang on January 5 handed over a diplomatic note to representatives of the Japanese Embassy, requesting Japan to assist with the continued search for a sunken Vietnamese cargo ship and 22 crewmen who went missing since Christmas Day.

Thang thanked Japan for having cooperated with Vietnam over the past days in scouring the waters to locate Vinalines Queen and its crewmen. He said that one of the ship’s crew returned to Vietnam on January 4 and that Vietnam is speeding up the rescue work.

Minister Counsellor Kitano Mitsuru said he will report to the Japanese Government to provide necessary support. He said although the ship was distressed far away from the Japanese coast, his government will try to help Vietnam. He also revealed that Japan will help train Vietnamese rescue workers in the field.

The same day, the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) sent a seaplane to the waters off its Northern Luzon Island to search for the vessel.  

Philippine Daily Inquirer quoted PCG spokesperson Lieutenant Commander Algier Ricafrente as saying the PCG has not called off search.

“Our search and rescue operations continue at the vicinity of where we believe the ship was when it went missing. But we still don’t know precise location where it sank,” Ricafrente said in a phone interview with Daily Inquirer.  

Vinalines Queen with 23 crewmen on board lost contact with the mainland in the area off the Philippines’ Batanes province at around 07.00am on December 25. It was transporting 54,000 tonnes of nickel ore from Indonesia to China within the territory of the Philippines.

On December 30, a British-flagged ship, the London Courage, found Dau Ngoc Hung, one of the Vinalines Queen’s crew adrift on a life raft. Hung was rescued around 350 kilometers west from the area where the ship sent out its last distress signal.

Doctor McKinnon to operate on other tumor patients

American surgeon McKay McKinnon will operate on tumor patients Thach Thi Sa Ly and Kieu Thi My Dung this week, Doctor Nguyen Truong Son, head of Cho Ray General Hospital in Ho Chi Minh, told VnExpress Newswire Thursday.

Sa Ly, 35, from the southern province of Soc Trang, sufferes from a strange skin disease which has resulted in thousands of tumors covering her body from head to toe.

The tumors are of different sizes, with some as big as lemons or oranges. Ly can hardly see, as her eyes are also covered with these carbuncles.

She has been living in pain for over 20 years and cannot walk, so Ly has had to depend on her 60-year-old mother, Thach Sa Phai, for her daily activities.

Doctor McKinnon is scheduled to perform surgery on Ly on Sunday, Doctor Son said, while another operation on My Dung will be done on Saturday. Both of the patients are now hospitalized at Cho Ray.

My Dung, 22 from Da Lat city, has a large tumor that covers the most of her face. Dung’s mother said she was only 1.5kg at birth, and both of her eyes looked different from the other. A small tumor started developing near her eyelid when she was three months old.

On Thursday Doctor McKinnon successfully removed a 90 kilogram tumor from 32-year-old Nguyen Duy Hai in a massive 10-hour operation that he led with a team of local doctors and nurses of the France – Vietnam Hospital.

Hai has been bed-ridden for years because of the huge size of the tumor.

VNN/VOV/VNS/Tuoi Tre