The ninth International Congress of the Asia-Pacific Society of Infection Control (APSIC) opened in the central city of Da Nang on March 20.

An overview of the congress (Source: VGP)

The three-day event, the first one held in Vietnam, attracts the participation of 1,500 delegates who are experts, doctors and researchers in infection control from 31 nations over the world.

The biennial congress aims to create a forum for participants to discuss and get updates on this field.

At this year’s event, delegates are expected to exchange opinions on 117 scientific reports with the focus on infection at hospitals, infectious diseases, antibiotic resistance, environmental sanitation, and infection prevention measures.

Speaking at the congress, Director of the Health Ministry’s Medical Examination and Treatment Department Luong Ngoc Khue stated that safety for patients and infection control at health clinics are among top priorities of countries, including Vietnam.

However, this is also a big challenge amid outbreaks of new diseases as well as familiar ones, and the spreading of multidrug and antibiotic resistant bacteria.

Over the past years, the Vietnamese Health Ministry has carried out a lot of policies and action programmes to intensify infection control at hospitals, and gained some achievements such as building an infection control system from the Health Ministry to health clinics and controlling many diseases likes SARS, avian flu A/H1N1 and measles, he added.-VNA