500 chemists offer lower priced drugs

Almost 500 pharmacies in HCM City – three-quarters of all outlets in the southern city – have embraced the Government's drug price stabilisation programme, according to the municipal health department.

Forty kinds of drug are included in the programme ranging from pain killers and eye-drops to medicines designed to control diabetes and combat diarrhoea.

Pharmacies taking part in the scheme have pledged to sell the listed drugs at 10 per cent lower than the market price.

Company slammed $3,500 for spam

A company which sent messages of a superstitious nature to mobile phone users, inducing them to gamble, has been fined VND70 million (US$3,500).

The company, set up under the name EMOBI Joint Stock Company, was fined VND40 million for sending spam to mobile phone users without their permission, the Ministry of Information and Communications said.

A VND20 million penalty was imposed for sending superstitious messages and VND10 million for messages which induced people to gamble, ministry inspectors said.

Inspectors said the ministry was also investigating another company, trading under the name of VNNET, accused of similar offences.

Doctor gets 15 years for insurance scam

The HCM City People's Court yesterday sentenced Luu To Lan, a former doctor at Cho Ray Hospital to 15 years in prison for masterminding a health insurance scam.

At the end of the three-day trial that began last Thursday, health workers Luu Thi Lieu, Nguyen Thi Thu Ba and Huynh Quoc Thai were each sentenced to six years in jail. Pham Thi Duyen and Tran Dinh Tuy each received three-year prison terms. Another six people were sentenced to between 1.6 and three years of probation.

Lan and eleven other health workers were found guilty of power abuse and embezzlement of State property causing total losses of VND4 billion (US$192,000) to the State exchequer.

The defendants, including doctors and medical representatives working in HCM City and neighbouring provinces, were accused of misappropriating the heath insurance fund at HCM City's Cho Ray Hospital.

They misused health insurance cards of many people who were not patients to prescribe medicines that were obtained from the hospital pharmacy and sold later in the open market.

When the case was busted in May 2009, investigators found the health workers had made out more than 1,168 prescriptions, taking over VND4 billion from the insurance fund. Lan herself netted over VND1.1 billion from the scheme, they said.

Each prescription she made, based on the cards, was worth VND2.5 to VND5 million. Lan paid VND300,000 to VND1.4 million to each health insurance card holder.

She also paid Huynh Quoc Thai and Nguyen Thi Mai, staff of pharmacology department of the hospital, VND200,000 per prescription for issuing the medicine in violation of hospital procedures.

Milk consumption goes up

Photo: VOV

Central province gets foot and mouth vaccine

The central province of Quang Nam will receive 100,000 doses of vaccine and 10,000 litres of disinfectant to control the spread of foot and mouth disease, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

Nearly 8,000 cattle heads in the province have been infected by the disease and over 1,300 have been culled due to a shortage of vaccine.

Tien Giang rejects fish cancer rumour

Rumours that eating square-head anabas causes cancer were untruthful, said deputy director of the Tien Giang Aquaculture Department Phan Huu Hoi.

The rumours have caused great public concern in the southern province for the past 10 days, affecting the trade and consumption of the fish.

Before the rumours appeared, prices of square-head anabas in the province were quite high, at about VND30,000-50,000 (US$1.5-2.5) a kilo.

However, after the rumours, the prices decreased sharply to about VND18,000-23,000 ($0.9-1.15), leaving the breeders having to shoulder major losses.

This was not the first time such rumours had been spread, Hoi said.

Before last Tet (Lunar New Year), rumours that grapefruit and durian could cause cancer appeared in the province, causing the fruit price to drop before a recent rebound, he said.

"It is totally groundless to say that eating square-head anabas can cause cancer," he confirmed.

Currently, the total area for breeding square-head anabas in Tien Giang is more than 300ha.

Nghe An holds memorial service for martyrs’ remains

A memorial service was held on April 27 in the central province of Nghe An to rebury 71 sets of remains of Vietnamese volunteer soldiers and experts who had been killed on the battlefields in Laos.
The remains, only three sets of which were identified, were found by a search team of Nghe An province in coordination with the special task forces of Vientiane and Xieng Khouang provinces of Laos.
In the 2010-2011 dry season, the search team gathered and brought home 160 sets of Vietnamese martyrs’ remains from Laos.

Young doctors volunteer to treat the poor

More than 3,000 young doctors from around the country will take part in a voluntary medical screening programme for poor people.

The 15-day Young Doctors Follow Uncle Ho's Teachings-Volunteering for Community Health programme, organised by the Viet Nam Youth Federation in co-operation with the Viet Nam Young Physicians Association, will begin on May 4.

The physicians would form 10 teams and travel to every province and city to provide health checks and free medicines as well as counselling on health care, Nguyen Ba Tinh of the association said.

Workers in industrial and processing zones would receive counselling in reproductive health, while teachers in kindergartens and primary schools would be taught first aid.

People would be counselled in providing nutrition to their children, he said.

Besides, the doctors would perform eye surgery on 1,000 old people, heart surgery on 10 children with congenital diseases, and other surgeries on 100 children with congenital defects, he said.

They would gift medical equipment to 10 most disadvantaged health clinics in the provinces of Quang Binh and Ha Tinh and a medicine cabinet worth VND30 million (US$1,442) to soldiers on Truong Sa Islands.

Pair awarded for exposing Toyota

Toyota Viet Nam's engineer Le Van Tach and Thanh Nien (Youth) reporter Nguyen Thai Son were honoured yesterday, April 27, with the Responsibility Award for exposing Toyota Viet Nam's violation of producing and selling automobiles with technical errors.

The award was granted by the Centre for Research on Development Communication under the Viet Nam Union of Science and Technology Associations.

Toyota Viet Nam decided to recall 65,000 automobiles on April 15.

Inspectors swoop on spamming telcoms

Inspectors from the Ministry of Information and Communications plan to take action against five Ha Noi-based companies for allegedly sending spam text messages to mobile phone users.

Among those thought to have been illegally advertising their products is EMOBI Joint Stock Co in Ha Noi. The company allegedly used five mobile phones to transmit up to 800 messages per hour.

Customers who responded to the bogus advertisements were charged VND15,000 (US$0.7) per message if they replied, inspectors said.

War dead remains repatriated from Laos

The central province of Nghe An yesterday held memorial and burial services for the remains of 71 Vietnamese soldiers who died in Laos during the country's resistance wars.

Only seven sets of the remains have been identified.

Vietnamese students jailed for drug trafficking

Two Vietnamese students studying in Laos were sentenced to more than 11 years' imprisonment by Huong Son People's Court on Tuesday for cross-border drug trafficking.

The Laos National University students, who are from the central province of Ha Tinh and Nghe An, were caught red handed transporting 1.8kg of marijuana across an international border gate in Ha Tinh's Huong Son District last January.

Tremor hits northern province of Lai Chau

A tremor measuring 3.6 on the Richter scale hit the northwestern province of Lai Chau at 10.37a.m on Tuesday but no damage was reported.

The National Global Geophysics Institute said the centre of the disturbance was about 4km deep and 14 km north-east of Lai Chau Town.

Other tremor measuring 3.8 on the Richter scale is reported on Monday. Local residents said that they did not feel the event.

Live mortar shells collected from river

More than 100 mortar shells and about a tonne of other explosive items have been pulled from the Thi Tinh River in Ben Cat District in the southeastern province of Binh Duong by the local Military Command.

The explosives were left over from the American War.

According to the military, the items are still highly dangerous even though they are old and rusty.

Iron ore found in central iron mine

A second iron ore deposit has been found in Thach Khe mine in the central province of Ha Tinh, the biggest iron mine in Southeast Asia.

An official said the ore was 18-20 metres under the surface and was estimated to be 700,000-800,000 tonnes. Iron content was about 62 per cent.

Ship passengers take part in tour

About 2,000 foreign tourists and crew from the luxury Costa Classical cruise ship started a five-day tour across Viet Nam after coming ashore at HCM City's Lotus Port on Tuesday.

The tour, organised by Saigontourist, covered activities in HCM City, the southern province of My Tho, the central cities of Hue and Da Nang and northern coastal Ha Long City.

Most of the tourists are from Italy, Spain, England and Germany.

VNN/VOV/VNS