Hygiene an Unknown Concept, Vietnamese Food Kills Regularly

by Vu Kim Chung

Curiously there are few flies, but at 8 am it is already hot - very hot - and the air is filled with the sickly sweet smell of recently butchered animal carcases. Women squat and haggle, prodding and turning with their bare hands lumps of meat laid out in cane baskets lining the street. The yellow fat and goose-bumped flesh of a duck that has been recently despatched glistens as if sweating in the dull light of an overcast sky. Nearby, women laugh as they draw completely untreated water from a roadside well to clean the pots and bowls of breakfast. Scrubbing hard, they splash within feet of a gutter, the greasy-grey and foetid contents of which trickles slowly away through a tangle of sticks, leaves and other detritus.

A man washes chickens amid the grime and slime of a street market in Hanoi. Food poisoning killed 16 people in the six weeks up to the end of June, and health officials had promised to make more inspections.

By the standards of some Southeast Asian countries, Vietnam is relatively clean. One ought to see the kitchens of Thailand and Indonesia--including those of first-class hotels. But this was not a scene for the squeamish and explains, in part at least, the high incidence of severe diarrhoeal disease that climbs with the temperature in the intensifying heat of summer. According to a report by Vietnam's Ministry of Health's Food Quality and Safety Bureau, nearly 7,000 people suffered from food poisoning in 1998, with 41 dying. With another month to go before summer reached its peak, eight cases of mass food poisoning were reported by the middle of June 1999. Ministry officials said during the last week of June that 248 people had become seriously ill and 16 in Hanoi alone had died in the previous six weeks.

The figures had them worried, to say the least. They pledged to strengthen routine inspections of fresh and processed foods on sale at markets and served at the ubiquitous pavement cafes. Fat chance in a country becoming increasingly corrupt where the inspectors get a free meal or other enticements to not see the filth and where the concept of true hygiene is completely unfathomable. The advice offered by one local medical clinic is perhaps the safest bet.

"While exotic local dishes are a delightful treat, contaminated food can cause vomiting, diarrhoea, typhoid and hepatitis A," a doctor warned. "Oh, and watch out for small stones in your rice. One of these gone undetected can mean an unexpected trip to the dentist."

But this is quite true also in Indonesia although stones in rice at Thai restaurants is unusual. They seem to take a little more care regarding that hazard.