Category: Health

Hanoi: Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh recently ordered efforts to be exerted to enhance the tuberculosis (TB) prevention and control efforts.

His recent dispatch in this regard said TB prevention and control activities have achieved commendable results in recent years. On an annual basis, over 100,000 TB patients are detected, with a treatment success rate exceeding 90% and the rate of detection quickly recovering after the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, the annual death toll remains high, at approximately 13,000, while many cases within the community remain undetected. According to the World Health Organization (WHO)’s 2023 report, the TB situation in Vietnam is still severe, ranking 11th out of the 30 countries burdened with the disease and the highest drug-resistant TB rate globally.

The PM urged ministries, sectors, central and local authorities to thoroughly implement the national TB prevention and control strategy. Communications work is considered a long-term and important task for the entire political
system from central to grassroots levels, with the healthcare sector being the cornerstone.

Among the several tasks assigned by the leader, chairpersons of the People’s Committees of centrally-run localities are instructed to strengthen the capacity of the healthcare system in diagnosing and treating the disease, while effectively implementing community-based TB prevention and control measures.

Meanwhile, the Minister of Health is requested to finalise and issue guidelines for the detection of TB, latent TB, and some respiratory diseases in the community and healthcare facilities. Additionally, there is a need to enhance international cooperation and ensure domestic resources, especially medicine./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

HCM City: Three Vietnamese donors with a rare blood type have helped save the life of a 64-year-old British man with immune thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP).

The man was taken to Cho Ray Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City for emergency treatment on March 17. Doctors said as he suffered the ITP and high blood pressure and was at risk of intracerebral hemorrhage, he needed an urgent platelet transfusion.

The man has a rare blood type of O Rh(-) with just one in 1,000 Vietnamese people having a match while the hospital ran out the platelet at that time. It then called out for donors to roll up their sleeves.

Six donors came, with three suitable identified.

Getting the blood transfusion and suitable treatment, the man made a good recovery and was discharged from hospital on March 23.

He thanked the donors and the medical team for their timely noble act./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Thai Binh: A senior official of the northern province of Thai Binh highlighted the productive cooperation in healthcare with Denmark while meeting with a visiting delegation of the Danish Ministry of the Interior and Health on March 5.

Providing a brief introduction of Thai Binh, Vice Chairwoman of the provincial People’s Committee Tran Thi Bich Hang said her province has an evenly developed healthcare system with many quality training and treatment institutions. Recently, the local health sector has applied many new and modern techniques to treatment, thus helping improving public healthcare and protection.

In particular, she noted, the strategic health cooperation programmes on non-communicable diseases between Vietnam and Denmark, implemented on a trial basis in Thai Binh, has entered the second phase and reaped positive results, helping better grassroots health workers’ capacity as well as local healthcare conditions.

Hang voiced her hope that the Danish ministry will continue promoting cooperation act
ivities in the province in the time to come.

For her part, Danish Minister Sophie Løhde Jacobsen said her country is strong at preventive medicine and public healthcare quality.

Given the cooperation results gained so far, she expressed the willingness to continue enhancing partnerships in and improving the effectiveness of non-communicable disease prevention and control between Thai Binh and Denmark.

Later the same day, the Danish delegation visited the Thai Binh University of Medicine and Pharmacy, including the Thai Binh Medical University Hospital. This is the only training establishment in the province carrying out a research project on chronic disease management in coordination with the University of Copenhagen and the University of Southern Denmark.

Sophie Løhde Jacobsen spoke highly of Denmark’s cooperation programmes in Thai Binh, adding that she believes the quality of grassroots healthcare and the province’s health system at large will receive more attention and develop further in the coming ti
me./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Hanoi: The Prime Minister on February 27 issued a Decision approving the Master Plan on the healthcare network for the 2021-2030 period, with a vision to 2050.

The plan encompasses systems of healthcare facilities at regional, inter-provincial, and inter-sectoral levels catering to diverse needs, including medical examination and treatment, rehabilitation; medical, forensic and forensic psychiatric examination, preventive and public health, testing and inspection of pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, food, vaccines, medical biologicals and equipment, vaccines; and population and reproductive health.

Key targets by 2025 include 33 hospital beds, 15 doctors, 3.4 pharmacists and 25 nurses per 10,000 people.

By 2030, the plan aims to achieve 35 hospital beds, 19 doctors, 4 pharmacists, 33 nurses per 10,000 people. The private sector will account for 15% of the total hospital beds.

Looking to 2050, the vision is to establish a number of modern healthcare facilities on par with international standards, develop the dom
estic pharmaceutical industry into a hub for high-value pharmaceutical production; achieve 45 hospital beds, 35 doctors, 4.5 pharmacists and 90 nurses per 10,000 people, and 25% of the total hospital beds falling under the private management./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Hanoi: An official of the Ministry of Health has called digital transformation in health care an irreversible trend.

Associate Professor, Dr. Phan Le Thu Hang, Deputy Director of the Department of Financial Planning, held that the Fourth Industrial Revolution and smart medical solutions will help Vietnam concertedly improve its health coverage, service quality, and medical costs, dubbed the three vertices of a triangle, which remains a hard nut to crack for every health system.

The health sector will prioritise optimising information-technology and digital transformation to better grassroots health care, with attention to be paid to upgrading infrastructure, personnel training, and perfecting relevant policies, she said.

Vietnam now counts about 11,400 medical facilities at the communal level which have played a crucial role in public health care, helping ease overload for hospitals at higher levels.

Citing a directive issued by the Secretariat of the Party Central Committee on continuing to consolidate,
perfect, and improve the quality of grassroots health care in the new situation, Hang said the document set higher requirements in terms of mindset, responsibility, and action by all-level Party Committees, authorities, and the entire political system in this regard.

The health ministry will coordinate closely with other relevant ministries, agencies, and localities to further consolidate the policy framework and implement core solutions to promote the sustainable development of grassroots health workers.

To effectively mobilise the participation of non-public health care in primary health care, it is necessary to roll out harmonious solutions on governance, technology and finance, Hang suggested./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Hanoi: Genuone Sciences, the Republic of Korea’s leading pharmaceutical company, announced on February 26 that it signed a business agreement with Vietnam’s Imexpharm Joint Stock Company (IMP) on the transfer of technology for seven products, including medications for the treatment of cardiovascular and diabetes-related diseases.

Genuone Sciences will support the entire process from production to supply and distribution of these products.

In addition to the existing method of distributing domestically produced products to Vietnam, the Korean company can now produce and supply products directly in the Southeast Asian country.

Samsoo Lee, CEO of Genuone Sciences Inc, described the strategic cooperation with Imexpharm as an important one that helps Genuone gradually access the Vietnamese pharmaceutical market, a potential and dynamic market in the Southeast Asia region.

To date, Imexpharm owns four manufacturing clusters, including three EU-GMP manufacturing clusters with eleven production lines that meet EU
-GMP standards. This has made Imexpharm the largest pharmaceutical manufacturing company with EU-GMP manufacturing clusters and the highest number of EU-GMP production lines. /.

Source: Vietnam News Agency