The conference is held by Vietnam and Hungary to share experiences in the fight against climate change and newly appeared diseases on November 4-5 in Hanoi. (Photo: VNA)

Scientists, at a conference held in Hanoi November 4-5, said climate change would affect around ten percent of Vietnam's population due to flooding, cause a loss of ten percent in the county’s gross domestic product and bring several fatal infectious diseases.

According to the World Health Organization, 2.4 percent of all diarrhea cases around the world, and six percent of malaria cases in low and average-income countries would be caused by climate change.

Health Minister Nguyen Quoc Trieu said climate change threatened people’s health, especially poor people in Vietnam.

Tens of thousands of people contracted digestive diseases, including cholera, typhoid and diarrhea every year.

The minister said some fatal diseases have also appeared recently like SARS, A/ H5N1 influenza (bird flu) and H1N1 influenza (swine flu).

In addition, the number of people contracting existing epidemic diseases, such as dengue fever and malaria, were increasing year by year.

The country had 30,000 cases of dengue fever in 2000, but it rose to 80,000 cases this year.

Climate change is also expected to widely spread zoonotic diseases, diseases transmitted from animals to humans.

The conference was held by Vietnam and Hungary to share experiences in the fight against climate change and newly appeared diseases.