VietNamNet Bridge – The U.S. will continue to support Vietnam in training personnel for disease fighting and infectious diseases prevention, said Kathleen Sebelius, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, at a meeting with HCMC chairman Le Hoang Quan on Tuesday.

HCMC chairman Le Hoang Quan receives Kathleen Sebelius, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services.

According to Sebelius, the two main fields which the health ministries of Vietnam and the U.S. will cooperate in are preventing and controlling diseases, upgrading infrastructure of community health centers and hospitals; and preventing the spread of infectious diseases and implementing the Global Health Initiative.

Part of the Global Health Initiative implemented in Vietnam via HCMC received funding of US$10 million from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to carry out training programs on emergency disease fighting, HIV prevention and applications of advanced treatment methods, especially mother-to-child transmission.

With assistance from the U.S. department, the Pasteur Institute in HCMC will set up a center for emergency assistance and disease control in HCMC as well as in 22 southern provinces and cities, which will increase disease control quality in Vietnam, train and monitor disease prevention and purchase equipment.

According to Quan, one of the major activities of HCMC is community health, including healthcare for mothers and children. However, Children’s Hospital 1 and Children’s Hospital 2 are overloading.

Speaking to the Daily, Nguyen Tan Binh, director of the HCMC Department of Health, said that due to the current overload at the hospitals, the city plans to begin construction of Children’s Hospital 3 in the outlying district of Binh Chanh this year. The new hospital is expected to be completed in 2016, he added.

Vietnam’s Ministry of Health and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Monday signed an agreement on health cooperation focusing on professional training and prevention of infectious diseases.

At a meeting with Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung in Hanoi on Tuesday, Sebelius affirmed that the U.S. would closely cooperate with Vietnam in emerging diseases and technology transfer to Vietnam to fight HIV/AIDS.

Source: SGT