Faced with the situation of the number of cases of pink eye coming to hospitals in Ho Chi Minh City increasing compared to recent years, at the request of the Department of Health, the research team on emerging infectious diseases of the Hospital for Tropical Diseases - OUCRU coordinated with the Ho Chi Minh City Eye Hospital and HCDC to conduct a quick survey to find the cause of the disease in patients coming to the Ho Chi Minh City Eye Hospital for pink eye.
The research unit conducted a survey and collected samples from 39 patients with pink eye, including 20 men and 19 women, including adults and children with an average age of 19.7 years old, who visited Ho Chi Minh City Eye Hospital on September 7, 2023. Of which, 30 patients came from 13 districts in Ho Chi Minh City and Thu Duc City. The remaining 9 patients came from neighboring provinces such as Binh Duong, Ba Ria - Vung Tau, Long An and Tien Giang.
The number of cases of pink eye in the Southern region has increased significantly in recent times.
After collection, the specimens were sent to the laboratory of the emerging infectious diseases research unit in collaboration with OUCRU at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases to perform multiplex PCR to detect adenovirus, enterovirus, metapneumovirus and parainfluenza viruses.
As of September 8, 2023, after PCR analysis, the research team detected adenovirus in the specimens of 5 patients, enterovirus in 32 patients, and 2 cases where the agent was not found. No cases were positive for metapneumovirus or parainfluenza virus, and there were no cases of co-infection between enterovirus and adenovirus.
Thus, enterovirus and adenovirus were the two agents found in 37/39 (95%) of tested patients, of which enterovirus was dominant (32/37, 86%), while the previously common agent, adenovirus, accounted for only a small number (5/37, 14%).
The research team is currently continuing to analyze gene decoding to accurately identify the serotype and genotype of the enteroviruses and adenoviruses that cause the disease.
Previously, according to a quick report from hospitals in the city, the number of visits for conjunctivitis from January 1, 2023 to September 6 was 71,740. It is noteworthy that the number of cases in recent days has tended to increase compared to the first months of the year. Of the cases, about 1/3 are school-age children, the rest are adults.
According to a report from the Ho Chi Minh City Eye Hospital, it is worrying that a number of cases of conjunctivitis (a severe clinical form of pink eye) have been detected recently, although they are not yet common.
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