Provinces and cities with many industrial parks are at a higher risk of adengue fever outbreak, the head of Ho Chi Minh City's Pasteur Institutehas said.

At a workshop on preventive methods against denguefever held in mid-April, Phan Trong Lan said the number of dengue fevercases in the last 10 years in HCM City and the southern provinces ofBinh Duong, Dong Nai, Ba Ria-Vung Tau and Long An were higher than inother areas in the country.

The Preventive Health Departmentsaid the number of cases in these areas has increased by 35.2 percentthis year compared to the first three months of 2014, while the numbershave decreased in the rest of the country.

Lan attributed theincrease to health officials' poor supervision of the control vector formosquitoes and an increase in use of containers to store water.

Population density has also risen in many of these areas, making it easier to transmit the disease.

Lan said most dengue fever patients in the four provinces and HCM Citywere over the age of 15, but in the other areas in the southern region,the cases involved mostly children.

Tran Dac Phu, head of thePreventive Health Department, warned that dengue fever this year couldbe more widespread because of weather changes.

He said manyprovinces and cities have not taken measures to prevent dengue fever,which has no cure. There is still no vaccine against dengue fever,either.

Mosquitoes that have become resistant to certain chemicals also pose challenges to the prevention of the disease.

Luong Ngoc Khue, head of Medical Examination and Treatment Department,said that many hospitals have not made sufficient investments in theirinfectious diseases wards.-VNA