Mekong holds health summit

Mekong holds health summit

An AIDS patient is cared for by a volunteer in HCM City. Viet Nam has the lowest number of HIV infection cases in Southeast Asia, a conference heard. - VNA/VNS Photo Duong Ngoc

HCM CITY (VNS) – Nearly 800 domestic and international doctors, researchers, medical managers and hospital leaders exchanged notes and shared experiences at the National Scientific Conference held yesterday in the Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta city of Can Tho.

Fifty-five out of 114 reports that were submitted to the organising committee were presented at the conference.

The reports focused on emerging and re-emerging infectious epidemics, pediatric infectious diseases and HIV/AIDS.

Pham Manh Hung, chairman of the Viet Nam Medical Association, said that Viet Nam had successfully controlled the HIV/ AIDS epidemic in the community, with a fall in the number of new infected HIV cases, AIDS cases and deaths due to HIV/AIDS.

Viet Nam had the lowest number of HIV infection cases in Southeast Asia, Hung said.

Despite considerable achievements, the HIV/AIDS epidemic was still a great challenge for the country’s healthcare sectors and it required enormous effort to prevent and control the epidemic.

The country had prevented and controlled emerging and re-emerging infectious epidemics, said Nguyen Van Kinh, chairman of the Viet Nam Society of Infectious Disease.

Prevention of the deadly Ebola virus from entering the country was currently a focus of the sector, Kinh said.

The conference was organised by the Viet Nam Society of Infectious Disease in coordination with the Viet Nam Clinical HIV/AIDS Association. – VNS

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