VietNamNet Bridge - Within three days, July 3-5, the Central Hospital for Tropical Diseases admitted five cases of streptococcus suis, two of them were dead. All of them caught the disease after eating tiet canh (pig blood pudding).

Dr. Nguyen Trung Cap, from the Emergency Ward, said all five patients were hospitalized in a state of severe septicemia, severe septic shock, respiratory failure, multi-organ failure, coma and necrosis of fingertips and toe-tips.

Two patients who were admitted to the hospital on July 4 suffered from multi-organ failure and died. They are a 55-year-old man from Hoa Binh province and a 40-year-old man from Ninh Binh province. Both ate pig blood pudding.

The first man was reported to eat pig blood pudding on July 1. After a day of getting fever, he fell into a coma, with many rashes on the face, ears, arms and legs. The patient was transferred to the Central Hospital for Tropical Diseases on July 4 in critical conditions. He died the next day.

The second man also drank and ate pig blood pudding and he was dead after several days.

Of the three remaining patients, one was still in a coma while the two others were out of shock but they would need long-time and costly treatment, doctors said.

Dr. Cap said the hospital received 4-5 cases of streptococcus suis each month. It is abnormal to have up to five patients in only three days. The cause might be hot weather, which urged bacterial rapidly grow in blood pudding.

Dr. Tran Dac Phu, Director of the Department of Preventive Medicine, Ministry of Health, has warned people to not eat blood pudding, undercooked cuisines processed from pork and internal organs of pig and not use pork with abnormal color to avoid infecting streptococcus suis.

Tiet canh is a traditional dish of blood and cooked meat in northern Vietnamese cuisine. The most popular is tiet canh vit, made from raw duck blood and duck meat. People also make tiet canh from raw pig and goat blood.

M. Anh