HP bacteria may be present in saliva, secretions from the stomach or mouth. As for Vietnamese people, using chopsticks in meals, especially getting food for each other or many people drinking in the same glass will cause a high risk of HP infection form the infected person's mouth.

With more than 30 years working in this specific field, Dr. Le Kim Sang specializes in endoscopy and gastroenterology at City International Hospital. He averagely treats 50 cases of stomach ache, colon pain and HP infection per day. According to him, patients with peptic - colonic ulcer disease and HP infection are the most dilemma.

HP (H. Pylori) infection is quite common and the majority of Vietnamese people suffer from it. From 1987 to 1989, the infected ratio of adults was 88-90%, children were 10% and this ratio remains almost unchanged even in recent years. The most common route of transmission is through mouth. Objects of the infection are diverse, everyone can get infected no matter what ages and genders. Furthermore, there is a large number of patients with medicine resistance among the infections, which is a serious issue in treatment. HP infected patients usually have dyspepsia and flatulence. In cases of peptic - colonic ulcer disease, there might be complications that cause hemorrhage. When the disease condition get worse, complications like gastrointestinal hemorrhage, gastric mucositis, gastric mucosal changes such as dysplasia may appear.

HP infection is really common and the majority of Vietnamese are infected with it

According to Dr Le Kim Sang: “In cases of long lasted HP infection, there might be complication such as of peptic - colonic ulcer disease or gastric cancer. Thus, disease diagnosis in the early stage is very important for everyone in order to make sure if we are infected with HP bacteria or not and have suitable treatment. Here I have met several cases of both adult and children with HP infection. The disease just keep coming back after treatment, enhancing the medicine resistance of patients which makes it very difficult for treatment.”

Dr. Sang also shared that the major cause of the spread of HP infection is the eating habits and lifestyle: “he majority of people in Southeast Asia are emotionally in favor of eating and drinking, they are extremely reverent to others, especially the elders. Without consciousness of bacterial infection, they eat together, share their food and drinks, even use the same glass or chopsticks. When infected, patients might have dyspepsia or abdominal pain and they often get general gastrointestinal medicine at random drug stores for treatment, which results in the medicine resistance of the disease. Due to poverty, there are some people that take these medicine everyday just to lessen the pain to work more effectively, which is also a bad habit and may enhance medicine resistance.

The major cause of the wide spread of HP infection is the is the eating habits and lifestyle

The medicine resistance of H. pylori affects the outcome of treatment, patient’s clinical improvement and their financial condition… If doctors continue to use antibiotic in the following treatment, it will cost the patients more money and the rate of medicine resistance of H. pylori will increase.

HP infected patients if not treated promptly, their condition might get worse and the disease will transfer to the chronic stage, resulting in cancer. However, the cancer progress depends on many factors such as individual constitutions, bacterial toxicity, diet, geography, ethnicity and genetics… It is very difficult to treat HP so the best way is to prevent it from spreading. Everyone should be aware of the disease, periodically have a health checkup to prevent our body from HP infection.