In early July, the Central Highlands began the rainy season, more than 50 km of red dirt roads leading to cluster 12 became muddy.
A corner of residential area cluster 12. Photo: Tran Hoa.
Residential cluster quarantine area 12 – where there are three cases of diphtheria infection, has 61 households, with 320 people of the H’Mong ethnic group.
Having lived in a wooden-walled house for 10 days, Giang A Cu, 20 years old, did not know where his 13-year-old younger brother Giang A Phu was being treated or what his health condition was.
Mr. Cu said, his family came from the North to Dak Nong to live and start a business decades ago.
Half a month ago, A Phu looked tired, lying in bed without running or jumping, going fishing with the village children as usual.
`I just heard from the medical staff that the Phu had diphtheria and was transferred to Ho Chi Minh City,` Cu said.
In the past, he often saw officers coming to his home to give injections, but no one in his family cared because they had to go to the fields.
Doctor K’le examined Giang A Cu – Giang A Phu’s brother.
A few days after Cu’s younger brother got sick, the Commune Health Center set up a quarantine station on a single road (about 7 km from the village).
About 200 meters from Owl’s house, these past few days, Ms. Ma Thi Chu, 38 years old, has always reminded her four children (8 – 16 years old) to stay at home until the end of the quarantine period.
`My child often plays with Giang A Phu, but luckily the doctor examined him and he was not infected,` Ms. Chu said.
Doctor K’Le, Deputy Health Station of Dak R’mang Commune, said that after receiving news of three positive cases of diphtheria, 12 commune and district health officials immediately entered the area and set up a checkpoint to keep people out.
During his four years working in the commune, every month Mr. K’Le and his colleagues fully vaccinated the entire commune’s population.
`Many times, we brought medicine and vaccines into our homes, but many parents did not allow their children to be vaccinated and had to leave,` Mr. K’Le recalled.
Nearly 100 km from the cluster 12 outbreak in Dak R’mang commune, the checkpoint barrier in Quang Hoa commune (with five positive cases of diphtheria, of which one died) has been dismantled.
Mr. Vu My Dinh’s family.
Inside the corrugated iron house, there were no valuables, except two beds and a dilapidated wooden table.
Dinh and his wife quickly finished their meal, prepared a bag of rice to bring to the farm hut 30 km away, fed the 50 chickens that had been starved during the 10-day quarantine, and took care of the coffee garden with more than 2,000 trees.
Mr. Dinh’s house is near the center of Quang Hoa commune, but until now he has never heard of diphtheria.
Mr. Huynh Thanh Huynh, Director of Dak G’long District Health Center, said that the outbreak cluster 12, Dak R’mang commune, was only lifted from quarantine on July 2, then continued to vaccinate people against the disease.
According to Mr. Huynh, in the district, H’mong people live scatteredly mainly in remote and high mountainous areas.
In June, Dak Nong recorded 12 cases of diphtheria, of which one child died, another child, Giang A Phu, had serious complications and was taken to the Ho Chi Minh City Hospital of Tropical Diseases for treatment.