“Now we have KFC and many fast-food restaurants,” Dr. Khanh said.

In a country where limbs were once shattered by ordnance and land mines, hospitals in Vietnam are treating an alarming caseload of “diabetes foot,” an infection that often begins as a minor scrape but then develops into a gangrenous wound because the disease desensitizes patients and compromises the healing process.

In the most severe cases, legs are amputated. If the limb can be spared, doctors perform a debridement, a grisly operation that seems more fitting for the trenches of Verdun than for a dynamic, modern metropolis like Ho Chi Minh City. The procedure involves cutting away rotting flesh and is performed several times a day at Nguyen Tri Phuong and four other hospitals in Ho Chi Minh City that have wards dedicated to diabetes care.

Doctors and government officials say no statistics are available on the number of amputations linked to diabetes in Vietnam, but Dr. Thy Khue, a pioneering diabetes researcher in the country, says the problem is “severe” and a particular strain on the health system because patients with amputated feet or legs tend to stay in hospitals for weeks. Diabetes foot exists in the West, but rates may be higher in Vietnam and other tropical countries because people tend to wear sandals outside and go barefoot around the house, leaving their feet more susceptible to injury, Dr. Khue said.

Diabetes rates are surging in many countries, but it is a particularly poignant paradox that, after so many years of war in Vietnam, peace is now partly marred by the afflictions of rising prosperity: clogged hearts, obesity and diabetes.

Official statistics in Vietnam show a vertiginous increase in Type 2 diabetes overall, the form of the disease that is linked to diet and lifestyle and in the West has reached epidemic levels, especially among the obese.