Dengue fever has claimed 24 lives in Vietnam this year, as an unseasonal outbreak of the disease continues to sweep the country.
Some 80,500 people have been infected, up 33.5 per cent from the same time last year, said Tran Dac Phu, director of the Health Ministry's Preventive Medicine Department.
Vietnam Television also reported on Monday that a woman had suffered a miscarriage attributed to dengue at a Hanoi hospital.
Dengue fever season usually begins in September, but this year it started in May, Deputy Health Minister Nguyen Thanh Long told a conference in July, according to the Tuoi Tre newspaper.
The illness is a mosquito-borne tropical disease caused by the dengue virus. Symptoms include fever, headaches, vomiting, muscle and joint pains and a characteristic skin rash.
