Vietnam is using domestically- produced test kits to diagnose dengue fever in a shorter period of time with lower cost, local newspaper Vietnam News reported Wednesday.

Vietnam has recently succeeded in manufacturing the kits, called MAC-ELISA, which produce testing results within four hours, instead of 12 days as other diagnosis methods currently in use in the country.

Meanwhile, the made-in-Vietnam kits are priced at 35 U.S. dollars each, one-tenth of the cost of similar foreign products.

The kits, produced by Vietnam's National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology, have been recognized by the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention and the Nagasaki Medical School in Japan, said Truong Uyen Linh, head of the institute's laboratory.

The institute will work on new test kits that give results in 15 or 20 minutes, laying foundation for it to research dengue fever vaccines, Linh said.

Vietnam reported 49,400 cases of dengue fever infections, including 51 fatalities, last year, down 32.7 percent and 49.5 percent respectively against the previous year, according to the country's General Statistics Office.

Source: Xinhua