ROME — The deadly bird flu virus has returned in a mutant strain with unpredictable risks to human health, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) warned on Monday.
FAO urged for a heightened state of readiness and widespread surveillance against the return of the highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza virus, amid signs that a mutant strain has been spreading across ...

HCM CITY — The Health Ministry has asked hospitals nationwide to outline plans on quality management and set up projects to improve the quality of check-ups and treatments.
At a workshop in HCM City yesterday, Nguyen Trong Khoa, deputy head of the MoH's Health Examination and Treatment Department, said that hospitals should base their plans on the ministry's set of criteria ...

HCM CITY — The HCM City Pasteur Institute will carry out the final phase of clinical tests on a vaccine against dengue fever next month.
If these are successfully concluded, the vaccine will be widely circulated throughout the country in about three years' time.

The Sanofi Pasteur Group, the institute's research partner, carried out research on the vaccine 20 years ...

HA NOI — The Drugs Administration of Viet Nam has instructed health departments nationwide to increase inspections of wholesale medicine prices registered with agency as part of the Health Ministry's measures to curb price rises.
The move comes on the heels of a recent inspection by the drug administration which found that a number of businesses had sold medicines at unreasonably ...

HCM CITY— Viet Nam should come up with an effective awareness strategy to increase understanding of all aspects of organ donation in order to have more people become donors, experts say.

According to the Health Ministry, nearly 300 organ transplants are performed each year in the country while around 500,000 people nationwide need transplants of various kinds.

Dr ...

HCM City will add medicine to its list of price-stabilised essential goods, said the deputy chairwoman of the municipal People's Committee.
Speaking on the TV programme Talk and Act, Nguyen Thi Hong on Sunday spoke about Government Resolution 11 that was issued to curb inflation, stabilise the macro-economy and ensure social security.

The TV programme was organised ...

HA NOI — The Ha Noi Health Department reported on Wednesday that the prices of 240 out of 4,000 drug items have increased by between 3 and 30 per cent during the last two weeks.

Inspectors found that they could not come up with a way to deal with the ongoing problem because despite being raised, prices have stayed within the registered rate. The department's Chief Inspector ...

The rubella epidemic reached a high point last month, and may last until next month, said deputy director of the National Hospital for Tropical Diseases Nguyen Hong Ha.
About 50-100 people a day went to the hospital to check for the disease. Most of them were youths and women aged 20-35.

Nearly 1,000 people have had checks for rubella this year, three times more ...

Construction of four new hospitals in HCM City's outlying districts will begin in September this year to ease crowding in central areas, the City People's Committee said at a meeting last week.
The committee approved construction of a Pediatrics Hospital in Binh Chanh District and general hospitals in Cu Chi, Hoc Mon, and Thu Duc Districts, its deputy chairman Hua Ngoc ...

HA NOI — Medical expenses for victims of traffic accidents would be paid for by the health insurance fund, said director of the Health Ministry's Health Insurance Department, Tong Thi Song Huong.
The move comes as part of a draft circular on health insurance jointly drafted by the ministries of Health and Finance.

The two ministries agreed that people with health ...

HCM CITY — Outbreaks of rubella and viral fever have been reported in Da Nang and Quang Nam Province in the last week.

Dr Pham Ngoc Ham, head of Da Nang Hospital's tropical diseases ward, said rubella is occurring earlier than normal this year.

On Monday 24 children were treated at the hospital for the disease taking the total number of affected children in the ...

HA NOI — Viet Nam is going to launch its first national e-health plans this year, the Ministry of Health has said.

Director of the Department of Medical Services Administration Luong Ngoc Khue told Viet Nam News that a national telemedicine service and a synchronous electronic medical records system would be set up in four years' time under the plans.

The telemedicine ...

Nearly 100 patients have been diagnosed with the A/H1N1 flu virus in eight cities and provinces since the beginning of this year, but most are mild cases, according to the Ministry of Health.

The virus was most prevalent in Ha Noi with 67 confirmed cases, followed by HCM City with 22 cases.

Nguyen Van Binh, head of the ministry's Preventive Medicine Department, ...

Many hospitals in HCM City recently have seen a rising number of patient admissions for respiratory and digestive disorders as well as dengue fever.

On Monday, the city's Paediatric Hospital No2 was crowded with children waiting for check-ups at 7 am.

The city hospital's Blood Testing Office admitted 300 children for blood tests on the same day, the hospital's ...

Viet Nam would have to train between 28,000 and 36,000 medical staff yearly to satisfy the forecasted national demand of 372,500 medical staff by 2015 and 480,000 by 2020, said Deputy Director of the Ministry of Health's Planning and Education Department Tran Quoc Kham.
Kham was speaking at an on-line conference on the development of human resources for the health sector ...

The country's Health Insurance Fund was expected to run a surplus of VND3.5 trillion (US$175 million) this year, said deputy general director of the Viet Nam Social Insurance Nguyen Minh Thao.
Thao said after a year of implementing the Law on Health Insurance, the fund's management and utilisation had seen positive changes.

In the years from 2005-09, the fund was ...

Phacoemulsification surgical technology has failed to eradicate cataract-caused blindness in Viet Nam because not enough people have access to it.

The technique had unexpectedly impeded the blindness eradication process, complained leading ophthalmologists, given both cost and surgeons' bias against traditional eye surgery.

Phacoemulsification surgery, also known ...

The number of children with respiratory illnesses, acute diarrhoea and dengue fever has increased sharply in recent days, according to hospitals in HCM City.

The HCM City Paediatrics Hospital No 1's Respiratory Diseases Ward is severely overstretched, having to take in as many as 200-230 inpatients a day while it has just 100 beds.

At the Digestive Ward of HCM ...

About 774,000 households in Viet Nam fall into poverty due to high treatment costs at hospitals regardless of whether they are given financial support, the World Health Organisation revealed at a two-day conference on Tuesday.

Speaking at the conference held by the Ministry of Health, Nguyen Thi Kim Phuong, from the Viet Nam-based WHO, said that the study, under the co-operation ...

The health ministry plans to sell stockpiled medicine reserves as one of the measures to manage drug prices and ensure sufficient supplies for health treatment, according to deputy minister Cao Minh Quang.

The national medicine circulation reserve plan allowed the ministry to sell reserve medicines in case of necessity at a market equivalent or lower prices, he said at ...