Dengue fever has so far this year killed 43 people in Vietnam's southern region, up 39 percent over the same period last year, according to sources from the country's Health Ministry on Thursday.

The Mekong delta provinces of An Giang, Bac Lieu and Hau Giang suffered most of the fatalities with respective figures of 7, 5 and 4, the sources said, noting that the deaths were among 47,000 infection cases since the beginning of this year.

Most of the cases were reported in the Mekong delta, where weather conditions and local people's habit of storing water in containers at their houses favor the breeding of mosquitoes -- the disease's transmitter.

The ministry is asking residents in localities nationwide to keep on cleaning environment around their accommodations, including keeping water containers clean and killing mosquitoes and their larva.

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

Source: Xinhua