Authorities launch vaccine investigation

The Preventive Medicine Department and health inspectors are set to carry out a thorough investigation into the use of vaccines and other biological products in six provinces and cities by September.

At a conference held last Thursday in HCM City by the Ministry of Health, Ass Prof Dr Tran Dac Phu, the department's deputy head, called on institutes of hygiene and epidemiology and the Pasteur Institute's branches in provinces and cities to verify if vaccination procedures are followed.

No more than 50 children should be vaccinated in a shift to ensure there is reasonable time to counsel parents and children should be held back for 30 minutes after vaccination to ensure safety, he said.

Disease prevention would continue to be strengthened to reduce incidence, he said.

There was a drop in the incidence of hand, foot and mouth disease, dengue fever, malaria, and rabies in the first six months, but the incidence of swine flu increased, he said.

Swine flu caused by the H3N2 virus is seeing an upward trend around the country, he said.

Deputy Minister of Health Pham Le Tuan said his ministry has been working on gradually easing the load on hospitals by increasing investment in building more new hospitals and expanding some of the existing ones.

The ministry aims to have 13,623 health facilities in the country by the end of this year and 13,645 next year.

Minister of Health Nguyen Thi Kim Tien said the capacity of grassroots medical facilities has improved thanks to measures like developing satellite hospitals and sending doctors and transferring technology from city and central hospitals to grassroots clinics.

Ha Noi gets go-ahead for new flyover

The Municipal People's Committee last Tuesday approved the construction of a 5-km flyover along the Ring Road 2 in the south of the city.

Committee vice chairman Nguyen Van Khoi said the project would be developed under the build-transfer (BT) form with a total investment capital of about VND4.76 trillion (US$226.7 million).

Vingroup (formerly Vincom Joint Stock Co) suggested to the Government and local authorities in late 2010 that they build the flyover.

This was at a time when Ha Noi had approved schemes to build flyovers in ring road areas where site clearance was difficult.

Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung initially approved the plan in 2011, following recommendations from the ministries of Construction and Transport.

The new road, expected to be 19m wide and 10m above the ground, would connect Vinh Tuy Bridge and the Nga Tu So interchange. It would pass over the districts of Thanh Xuan, Dong Da, Hai Ba Trung and Hoang Mai.

About 10.4ha of land would be needed for the project, which could begin in this year and be completed by 2016.

Early this month, the Prime Minister asked the city to assign another project to Vingroup to carry out simultaneously to enable it to recover capital spent on building the flyover.

The committee has assigned 226ha of land for the company to build an urban residential area and some other developments in Sai Dong A area, Long Bien District.

According to the People's Committee chairman, Nguyen The Thao, the flyover is among 37 key projects to be developed in the city by 2015.

Maths Training Centre to open in Binh Duong

The Investment and Industrial Development Corporation, Japan’s Yokohama International Centre, and the Eastern International University have signed an August 30 agreement to establish a Japanese and Mathematical Training Terakoya.

The centre in southern Binh Duong province will offer high quality education and training in an advanced learning environment based on Japanese teaching methods.

Provincial People’s Committee Vice Chairman Huynh Van Nhi said Binh Duong’s high economic growth rate and membership of the key southern economic zone means it is eager to ensure its human resources and staff are of a high enough quality to meet the demands of the country’s industrialisation and modernisation processes.

The centre’s establishment will bolster the Japanese language skills of the province’s human resources, developing industry and attracting additional Japanese investment projects.

Japan’s more than 170 projects worth over US$3.2 billion already constitutes the largest percentage (18 percent) of Binh Duong’s total foreign direct investment.

Over 51,800 people visit HCM Mausoleum

Over 51,800 people visited the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum in the past week to mark Viet Nam's National Day, including 3,370 foreign visitors, according to the mausoleum's management board.

Visiting the mausoleum on National Day is a way that Vietnamese people show their gratitude to the country's great leader who devoted his life to national independence and freedom.

The board also announced that the mausoleum and the War Martyrs and Heroes Memorial will close between September 6 and November 5 for annual maintenance. It will reopen on November 6.

Students receive Odon Vallet scholarships

The Rencontre du Viet Nam (Meet Viet Nam) organisation on Sunday presented 207 Odon Vallet scholarships worth over VND1.7 billion (US$81,700) to outstanding students in the central region of Viet Nam at a ceremony in Da Nang.

The beneficiaries included students living in difficulty or belonging to ethnic minority groups in the city and the central provinces of Quang Nam, Quang Ngai, Binh Dinh and Phu Yen.

The Odon Vallet scholarship fund came to Viet Nam via the "Meet Viet Nam" organisation founded by overseas Vietnamese Professor Tran Thanh Van.

Over the past 13 years, Professor Odon Vallet has spent his savings on scholarships for poor high school and university students in France and Viet Nam to encourage them to pursue their studies.

Since 2001, he has presented over 20,000 scholarships totaling more than VND100 billion ($4.7 million) to Vietnamese students.

Woman killed in boat explosion

A 53-year-old woman was killed and her husband injured when their boat suddenly exploded on the Dong Nai River in southern province of Dong Nai on Sunday.

The boat blew up when the couple tried to start the engine after buying 12 canisters of petrol from a vendor across the river.

The husband was then taken to hospital, but his wife disappeared after being blown overboard. Her body was found yesterday, Sep 2.

Police are investigating.

Cancer prevention measures failing

Viet Nam has experienced increasing proportions of cancer cases, but prevention and treatment could not be done effectively.

The situation was due to low awareness among residents and the capacity of healthcare facilities, experts said.

The country has an average of 130,000 cancer cases each year, announced a national conference on cancer held in central Hue City on Friday.

The rate could be 200,000 cases by 2020.

Figures by the World Health Organization showed that there are 12 million new cancer cases globally each year and seven million cancer deaths.

In developing countries, the number of cancer cases, including lung cancer in men, breast cancer in women and stomach cancer in both genders, is increasing sharply.

Assoc. Prof. Bui Dieu, director of Ha Noi-based K Hospital, said most patients appeared at cancer treatment hospitals during the final stage of cancer, preventing effective treatment.

Research done on 51,000 cancer profiles by Dieu and his associates pointed out that 71.4 per cent of the total check up with five per cent leaving cancer treatment at or after the third stage of cancer.

According to the Viet Nam Cancer Association, cancer prevention and treatment are challenging the country's health sector, as it could not deal with the overload of cancer patients at hospitals around the country.

It has only six public hospitals specializing in cancer treatment with their locations scattered in different regions, including K hospital in Ha Noi, Cancer Hospital in Da Nang, and Cancer and Tumour hospitals in HCM City and Can Tho.

Polyclinic hospitals in the other 37 provinces have cancer and tumour treatment departments. However, all of them are operating in facilities that lack proper conditions. Even the total sickbeds for the whole system could meet only 30 per cent of the demand, the conference heard.

The country has set up a national programme for cancer prevention and treatment for the years 2012 to 2015, aiming at increasing awareness on cancer for residents, training healthcare workers in cancer identification, and closely monitoring the cancer treatment system.

But experts wonder if it would take more time for the programme to reach targets because of the very difficult conditions that healthcare system is experiencing.

Experts at the conference said more investment in cancer prescription and treatment facilities as well as manpower is crucial for dealing with the increasing number of patients.

The conference, which was held by the Viet Nam Cancer Association, Hue Central Hospital and Hue Medical University, was attended by 400 doctors and experts from the US, Germany, Japan, Singapore and Taiwan.

Ha Noi sees dengue cases rise

More than 500 cases of dengue fever have been reported in Ha Noi so far this year, a surge of 20 per cent year-on-year, said the city's Health Department Deputy Director Hoang Duc Hanh on Thursday.

This year, after having PCR tests, most cases were found to be D3 positive, one of the four different viruses that cause the fever.

The whole city has been affected but 13 districts, including Dong Da, Hoang Mai, Ha Dong, Hai Ba Trung have suffered the worst of the disease.

The department is currently inspecting dengue fever prevention measures in the city and is working with local authorities to distribute information on how to prevent the fever from spreading.

Disadvantaged students receive scholarships

A ceremony was held in south central province of Binh Thuan on August 30 to present 350 scholarships worth either VND3.5 million or VND4 million each to eligible pupils suffering economic hardships.

The event was hosted by the steering committee for the campaign to facilitate disadvantaged student school attendance and Binh Thuan province’s Study Encouragement Fund.

After three years of implementation, the fund’s financial support from benefactors, agencies, businesses, and overseas Vietnamese exceeded VND37 billion. The money has been used to help more than 42,600 poor students further their education.

 Steering Committee Chief Nguyen Thi Phuc told ceremony attendees the province now has around 18,000 poor, orphaned, or disabled students.

Provincial authorities are intent on ensuring its most vulnerable residents are presented with the same opportunities as their luckier compatriots.

The Vietnamese branch of Japan’s Marubebi education fund used the ceremony to award additional scholarships worth a total of nearly VND120 million.

Hospitality sector takes on employees

The tourism and hospitality industry will be one of the top 12 employers in HCM City by 2020, according to the Centre for Forecasting Manpower Needs and Labour Market Information.

Enterprises in the tourism and hospitality industry in the city will need 21,600 more employees each year, Tran Anh Tuan, the centre's standing deputy head, said at a workshop held on Friday in HCM City by the Department of Education and Training.

The city has 56 training schools including universities and vocational schools that train tour guides and personnel for hotels and restaurants, Tuan said.

However, the number of graduates from these institutions only meets 60 per cent of demand.

According to Viet Nam National Administration of Tourism, the industry needs nearly 40,000 new staff nationwide each year, but tourism and hospitality schools only turn out 15,000 per year.

Tran Van Hung, rector of the Saigontourist Hospitality College, said that his college has received many inquiries from tourist companies, hotels as well as restaurants.

Of the college's 757 students who graduated this year, 717 have already found jobs, he said.

Nguyen Viet Anh, head of the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism's travel division, said that many tourism companies in the city need tour guides fluent in Russian, Korean, Japanese, French and Thai languages.

They end up hiring foreigners for their tours, Anh said.

Tourism and hospitality schools should pay attention to providing training in these languages in addition to English, he added.

Last year, the city had 818 travel companies, 1,724 hotels and inns with 41,449 employees, Anh said, adding that this indicates a staff shortage, especially at the managerial level.

Furthermore, nearly 45 per cent of tour guides and 85 per cent of receptionists at hotels and restaurants have weak foreign language and professional skills, Tuan said.

Anh suggested that tourism and hospitality schools should co-operate with companies in the sector, tourism associations, and departments of culture, sports and tourism to improve their curricula.

Pham Ngoc Thanh, deputy head of the City Department of Education and Training, said that establishing a council manned by rectors of tourism and hospitality teaching institutions in HCM City could improve the quality of human resources training.

The council can help schools connect with employers to ensure jobs for graduates in the sector, he said.

Fundraising campaign targets Truong Sa kids

The "For beloved Truong Sa students" programme on Friday (Aug 30) launched a fund-raising campaign to build a new school for students on Sinh Ton Island in the Truong Sa (Spratly) Archipelago.

The programme - run by the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union and HCM City Phap Luat (Law) newspaper — seeks to raise VND12 billion (US$571,000) to build a 380sq.m school with three classrooms, a library, a sports ground, and two rooms for teachers' boarding.

It is expected to be ready next April.

Last April a primary school on Truong Sa Lon Island, the first school in the archipelago, opened as part of the programme, former deputy president Truong My Hoa said.

The programme mobilised VND12 billion for it, with overseas Vietnamese donating VND2 billion, Hoa, president of the union's Vu A Dinh Scholarship Fund, which runs it, said.

Vietnam helps build Laos high school

The Vietnamese Government has provided Laos authorities with the non-refundable aid required to build a high school in Luang Namtha province’s Viengphoukha district, about 700km northern Vientiane.

Addressing the August 30 groundbreaking ceremony, Luang Namtha Governor Phimmasone Luong Khamma expressed gratitude for the Vietnamese Government’s and people’s valuable assistance.

He noted the achievements of cooperation between Luang Namtha and its two Vietnamese sister provinces Vinh Phuc and Phu Tho, highlighting their practical contributions the human resources training, infrastructure development, and poverty reduction undertaken in Lao localities.

He pledged the school construction project will receive the best possible conditions for success and nurture the special friendship and solidarity between Laos and Vietnam.

Once complete, the high school in Viengphoukha—designed to accommodate more than 1,500 pupils—will have modern classrooms, multi-functional spaces, sports and cultural areas, and a library.

VNN/VOV/VNS/VNA