GAVI to provide Rubella vaccine to Viet Nam

Around 23 million children aged between 9 months and 14 years will be provided with the Rubella vaccine for free under the Expanded Programme for Immunisation (EPI), supported by the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI).

Around 23 million children aged between 9 months and 14 years will be provided with the Rubella vaccine for free under the Expanded Programme for Immunisation), supported by the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation.

EPI director Nguyen Tran Hien told Viet Nam News that donations of the vaccine and syringes had been approved and will go ahead as soon as official confirmation is received from GAVI and sent to the Ministry of Health.

Hien did not reveal the value of the donation, but if it goes ahead as planned it will be the largest GAVI project in Viet Nam so far.

He confirmed that the vaccine will be provided for free to all children in the age bracket nation-wide from 2013-14 in an effort to prevent congenital malformation to children in Viet Nam. The vaccine will then be given to 9-month old children in the annual immunisation programme from 2015.

The World Health Organisation have said that around 30,000-45,000 children are born with congenital malformations every year in Viet Nam due to a variety of factors. One common cause is the mother suffering from the Rubella virus during gestation. They added that up to 90 per cent of children are born with malformations if their mothers had Rubella during the first three months of pregnancy.

2013 chosen as Vietnam Family Year

The Prime Minister has agreed with the Vietnam Women’s Union’s proposal to observe 2013 as Vietnam Family Year.

Under a recently signed decision, the PM assigned the Union to work closely with the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, provincial People’s Committees and relevant ministries and agencies to carry out practical activities to celebrate the event.

He asked the designated agencies to boost communications campaigns to encourage people to build happy families.

Over the years, the Party and State have paid special attention to family affairs, launching many related movements aiming to prevent domestic violence, fight off social evils, and develop community services.

Local administrations have run training courses to improve social workers’ capacity, launched communications campaigns and integrate domestic violence prevention into school curricula.

Vietnam observes June 28 as Vietnam Family Day.

Local authorities to restore Ca Mau River

The Ca Mau People’s Committee has said the city would spend VND10 billion (US$480,000) to restore the Ca Mau River.

The money will be used to clear riverside houses, build embankments and dredging.

The construction process will affect the flow of the river, so the municipal administration of the southernmost province has adopted a number of proactive measures in order to avoid traffic congestion and ensure safety.

Forest land documents being used illegally

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has instructed localities to investigate cases of using ownership documents of forest land to set up false projects to get financial support from the Government.

Recently, fraudsters have posed as representatives of the Government, Ministry of Public Security, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Home Affairs and Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to obtain the documents from farmers.

These people are taking advantage of the State forest protection policy and development programme by promising locals from VND 500,000 to 2 million (US$49-98) per hectare.

Vietnam can treat SARS-like infection

Vietnam has yet to detect any cases of SARS-like infection, but can treat the disease, said Dr Tran Thanh Chuong, Deputy Head of the Preventive Medicine Department.

The medical sector has developed clinical guidelines for any patients infected with Coronavirus – a SARS-like virus that has killed six people around the globe, Chuong said on Tien Phong news wire.

The Ministry of Health has trained medical staff to diagnose and treat the disease if it is found in Vietnam, he said.

In a recent telegram, the ministry asked localities to intensify medical quarantine efforts at international border gates to early detect and isolate any cases suspected of catching this deadly virus.

Suspect samples will be sent to either the Central Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology or Pasteur Institutes for testing.

Coronavirus, similar to the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) virus that spread globally in 2003 and killed hundreds of people, was first detected in the Middle East in 2012. Most infected cases travelled to Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan.

Experts raised concerns about a possible human-to-human transmission of Coronavirus after three people of a family in the UK contracted the virus. One of the three died on February 17.

Five other victims included three from Saudi Arabia and two from Jordan.

Siemens donates equipment to hospital

Siemens Viet Nam yesterday, Feb 20, donated a US$400,000 syngo.plaza Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS) solution to Cho Ray Hospital.

“We understand very well the challenges big hospitals like Cho Ray are faced with, and thus are convinced that the donated PACS system will support the hospital to optimise their workflow and improve their performance significantly.”

The statement was maded by Dr. Bern Montag, CEO of Imaging and Therapy Systems at Siemens AG.

“We will put the system into operation soon in order to optimise the clinical workflow and resources as well as improve the quality of healthcare services,” said Prof. Dr. Nguyen Truong Son, director of Cho Ray Hospital.

This healthcare IT solution, composed of hardware and software components plus professional services, will help improve the imaging diagnostic workflows within the hospital significantly.

As a result, it would offer mutual benefits for both the hospital and for more than a million patients that need medical exams and imaging diagnostics each year.

By connecting all medical imaging equipment to the users in an integrated hospital-wide network, the solution enables fast and easy processing, archiving and transferring of digital diagnostic images across the hospital, with no more need for films.

It makes the accessing and reading of images by radiologists and other physicians who are connected to the network much smoother and faster.

The syngo. plaza PACS solution also helps to increase the reliability of patient data, and reduces errors through digitalisation of imaging and advanced reading features, making films obsolete.

It will also help to reduce costs in diagnosis and treatment planning by better optimising the utilisation of existing hospital resources and avoiding some “non value- adding” process steps.

Moreover, this hi-tech system will help save time and reduce stress for medical staff, which ultimately results in higher patient throughput and improved performance.

Immediately, the system will help reduce the overload of patients, especially at emergency and radiology departments.

Cho Ray Hospital is a Special Hospital of the Ministry of Health with 66 clinical departments that provide healthcare services to 22 provinces in central, southern and the Highland provinces.

In 2012, more than 1 million patients had medical exams at the hospital.

US congressmen discuss children welfare with Vietnam

A US congressional delegation headed by Senator Mary Landrieu is on a visit to Vietnam from February 19-21 to discuss issues relating to children welfare and the resumption of a child adoption programme between the two countries.

At a press briefing in Hanoi on February 20, Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana said that they had working sessions with some relevant Vietnamese agencies on the issues.

The US congressmen applauded Vietnam’s efforts in enhancing the country’s children welfare system as well as its strengthened commitment to reforming the child adoption scheme in the past years.

The Vietnam visit is part of the delegation’s Asia-Pacific tour on the issue of children welfare schemes and inter-national child adoption.

Children's hospitals overcrowded in City

Children’s hospitals in HCM City have been besieged with cases of bronchitis, pneumonia, diarrhea, digestive disorders, meningitis and encephalitis in the days following the Tet (Lunar New Year) festival.

Nearly 5,000 children were examined and treated at the Children’s Hospital No.1 on Sunday, February 17, most of them with respiratory problems.

Some of the cases were critical because they were hospitalised very late, a doctor said.

He said the children had suffered respiratory problems for many days, but parents had not brought them to the hospital because it was Tet.

Currently, around 1,000 children have been admitted as inpatients, he added.

Dr Hoang Le Phuc, head of the hospital’s digestive diseases ward, said that 130 of the 1,000 children admitted were suffering from digestive disorders.

Many children from the neighbouring provinces of Binh Duong, Dong Nai and Ba Ria-Vung Tau have been rushed to the city’s Children’s Hospital No.2 in recent days.

The hospital has examined more than 3,000 children each day since February 16, doctors said.

Dr Pham Ngoc Thach, deputy head of the hospital’s general affairs office, said that the number of children hospitalised with diarrhea has increased in days following the festival.

During the festival days, the children had eaten unhygienic and improperly cooked food, leading to diarrhea, he said.

The number of diarrhea cases in last few days accounted for 30 per cent of those coming to the hospital for treatment, he said.

Last week, nearly 40 children were brought to the hospital each day with meningitis and encephalitis.

Apart from diseases, the number of children brought to the hospital with injuries sustained in traffic accidents has also increased during and after the Tet holiday, doctors said.

From February 9 (Lunar New Year’s Eve) to 17, the hospital admitted 192 children with injuries. Among these 41 were traffic accident victims.

Children’s hospitals and wards in Ha Noi have also seen an increase in children with diseases and injuries.

Dr Nguyen Tien Dung, head of the Bach Mai Hospital’s Paediatric Ward, said they have been examining 50-100 children with respiratory problems every day, primarily because of reactions triggered by weather changes.

Of these, 20 children had to be admitted to the hospital each day as inpatients for further treatment.

The National Hospital of Peadiatrics in the capital city examined more than 1,000 children with respiratory diseases each day over the last three days, doctors said.

Police uncover major drug-trafficking ring

Four people involved in a large-scale drug trafficking ring in central Viet Nam were captured yesterday afternoon in Hue City, according to central Thua Thien - Hue Province’s police.

The police said this was the largest drug trafficking case uncovered in ten years. The smugglers admitted to transporting and selling over ten packets of heroine since last July.

The four traffickers were reported to be relatives, two of them living in Hue City and the other two residing in central Nghe An Province and Laos.

Earlier this week two of the suspects were caught red-handed while selling drugs on Chi Lang Road in Hue’s Phu Cat Ward.

The police seized two packets of heroine, 15 tablets of amphetamine-type stimulants and over VND30 million (US$1,500) in cash.

The police have since summoned five other people suspected of being involved in the ring for interrogation.

The investigation is being continued.

VNN/VOV/VNS