Disease control along Lang Son-China border to be enhanced
The management board of the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS) Health Security Project in Lang Son will work to enhance information sharing and coordination against diseases with China along the shared border by the end of 2018.
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| Customs procedure at Lang Son's Huu Nghi border gate |
The information was revealed at an inter-sectoral meeting on disease control and prevention in 2018 held by the board in the northern province on November 16. The event brought together representatives from the province’s Department of Health, Centre for Disease Control and General Hospital alongside ten districts participating in the project.
At the meeting, Dao Dinh Cuong, Director of the Centre for Disease Control and the board’s deputy director, gave the attendees a brief overview of the GMS Health Security Project and its action plans in Lang Son this year.
Funded by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) through an US$84 million sum, the project will be carried out in 36 provinces in Vietnam, including Lang Son, from 2017 – 2021.
It aims to strengthen health security in the GMS nations, namely Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam, by improving district and provincial health services for diagnoses, response and treatment of communicable diseases, minimizing risks of entry of emerging diseases into the four countries, and reducing the number of death and those infected by the diseases in the region.
In Lang Son, the project will finance purchase of medical facilities and equipment for district medical service providers, enhance the province’s capacity to control communicable diseases and hospital-acquired infection, and to prevent cross-contamination and disease outbreak at the communities. It will also provide capacity building for local healthcare workers in disease prevention and control.
For the remaining months of this year, the project’s management board in Lang son will hold meetings between medical authorities and related agencies of the province and China to step up information sharing between the two sides and strengthen cooperation on disease prevention along their shared border.
The attendees discussed plans on active prevention against human communicable diseases in 2018 and on inter-sectoral cooperation in prevention of diseases transmitted from animals to humans.
