Category: Self Care

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

Hanoi: The Party and State always place people at the centre of development, and caring for and improving people’s health is one of the important tasks and top priorities of Vietnam’s development policy, President Vo Van Thuong has affirmed.

He made the remarks while addressing a programme held in Hanoi on February 26 to honour health workers and present awards of the sixth writing contest named ‘Unsung Sacrifice’ on the occasion of the 69th anniversary of the Vietnamese Doctors’ Day (February 27, 1955 – 2024).

Congratulating health workers nationwide on the day, President Thuong said that over the last 69 years, generations of health workers have made unceasing efforts to surmount countless difficulties and devote themselves to the care for, protection, and improvement of public health.

The health sector has obtained significant achievements to make breakthroughs in many specialised areas, help improve the stature and health of Vietnamese people, and greatly contribute to national development, thereby hel
ping the country become a bright spot in the realisation of the Millennium Development Goals and take firm steps towards the Sustainable Development Goals in the field of health care, he stated.

The State leader highlighted that the widespread healthcare system from the grassroots level now covers even remote, border, and maritime areas. Vietnam is among the best performers in reducing maternal and infant mortality rates while people’s health indexes have been improved considerably.

Besides, he added, low-income earners, ethnic minority people, children, the elderly, and persons with disabilities have been assisted to access medical services. The quality of health examination and treatment has been increasingly bettered. A number of epidemics and social diseases have been curbed and eradicated. People’s longevity has also been improved.

The President noted that many specialised medical advances have become sources of pride for Vietnam and been recognised in the world, opening a bright prospect for the trea
tment of fatal and rare diseases. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic hitting all countries around the world, health workers of Vietnam exerted utmost efforts to join the entire people in the disease combat.

The enormous contributions by the health sector have won recognition from the Party and State, respect and trust from people, and high evaluation from other countries in the region and the world, he went on.

In his speech, President Thuong also pointed out certain difficulties and challenges facing the sector such as fast population aging, complex changes of disease patterns, inappropriate policies for health workers, and overloading at higher-level hospitals.

Given this, the immediate task is to quickly perfect related policies and legal regulations, create a professional, safe, and favourable work environment for health workers, and encourage the innovative spirit. In addition, it is important to boost digital transformation, science – technology application, manpower training, transfer of techniques to lower
-level medical facilities, grassroots healthcare development, and preventive medicine, according to the leader.

He called on each health worker to sustain the love for their job, study and access new things, master in-depth and modern scientific and technical advances, and pay due attention to the training of following generations of health workers.

With their medical ethics, wisdom, talent, and big aspirations, health workers should set new visions and targets to help Vietnam’s health sector become one of the best in the region and the world, the President remarked.

At the programme, awards were presented to 15 entries shortlisted in the final round of the sixth ‘Unsung Sacrifice’ writing contest on the health sector./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Hanoi: Chairman of the National Assembly Vuong Dinh Hue has urged the medical sector to develop an equal, quality and effective healthcare system towards universal healthcare coverage and social insurance for all.

At a working session with the Ministry of Public Health on February 20 ahead of the 69th anniversary of the Vietnamese Doctors’ Day (February 27), the top legislator requested the sector to fully roll out the 12th Party Committee’s Resolution on enhancing people’s healthcare in the new situation so as to improve mental and physical wellbeing, stature, longevity, and life quality of the Vietnamese people.

He highlighted the sector’s important role in the control of the COVID-19 pandemic and the downgrade of the infectious disease to Group B that covers the ones spreading fast and causing death from Goup A that comprises particularly dangerous ones spreading very fast and on a large scale and have a high mortaility rate or unclear causes.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) said countries worldwide
can learn from Vietnam’s pandemic prevention and control experience, and this is the biggest achievement that the sector has carved out so far, he added.

He hailed the sector’s efforts to overcome challenges, remove policy bottlenecks, and make bold steps in the completion of mechanisms, state management and implementation of professional missions, making contributions to the country’s success.

Describing the medical profession as a special one, he stressed that human resources in the sector must be recruited meticulously and receive special training and remuneration.

Since investing in healthcare is investing for development, he recommended the sector to focus more on the training work, helping doctors and other medical staff improve their political mettle, professional expertise and moral virtues to better serve the patients.

Hue took the occasion to asks the sector to study suitable remuneration policies for the medical staff, and sketch out stable and long-term policies to attract high-quality human r
esources, along with bolstering technology transfer and innovation.

He called on the sector to streamline its apparatus and step up administrative reform and digital transformation.

Sixty-nine years ago on February 27, President Ho Chi Minh delivered a letter to a conference of medical workers, asking the sector to stay united, sincerely care for patients, and develop the country’s health sector. Since then, the date February 27 has become the sector’s traditional day./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency