Medicine For Daily: January 2009

Friday, January 30, 2009

Phu Yen hospital deals with 300 plus Tet emergencies

A hospital in the central province of Phu Yen has treated more than 300 emergency cases in three days from the Lunar New Year’s Eve on Sunday to Tuesday.

Head of the Phu Yen General Hospital, Bui Tran Ngoc, said yesterday that on Sunday and the first two days of the Lunar New Year, the hospital received 361 cases in which 188 had to be admitted as inpatients.

Ngoc said 151 people were hospitalized on Tuesday, the second day of Tet, one of whom was declared dead on arrival from knife wounds.

Most of the cases brought to the hospital were traffic accidents, and about nine involved fights, Ngoc said.

Source: Tuoi Tre

Bird flu risk rises ahead of Lunar New Year next week


Map of China showing areas that have reported cases of bird flu infection and fatalities since the start of January.

Human bird-flu infections may rise in Asia as people handle more poultry for next week’s Lunar New Year celebrations, according to a United Nations veterinarian who tracks the virus in birds.

Health authorities in China, South Korea and Vietnam have stepped up surveillance of H5N1 avian influenza among poultry ahead of the festival, which starts Jan. 26.

Production of chickens and ducks swells as much as three times in the run-up to the holiday, making outbreaks more likely, said Jeff Gilbert of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization in Hanoi, Vietnam.

“It’s a little bit more of a tinderbox,” Gilbert said in a telephone interview Tuesday. “If it’s going to happen, it’s more likely to happen now than in another two or three months.”

A flu pandemic of avian or other origin could kill 71 million people worldwide and lead to a “major global recession” costing more than $3 trillion, according to a worst-case scenario outlined by the World Bank in October.

Indonesia, which leads the world in human deaths from bird flu, reported two more fatalities Wednesday. China has reported three human deaths from the virus this year and Vietnam has reported one case in a girl who recovered. Last week Nepal reported its first outbreak of the virus among poultry.

In Vietnam, the nation with the most outbreaks of H5N1 in birds since late 2003, cases in poultry surged in the lead-up to the Lunar New Year every year from 2004 to 2007, FAO figures show. The number of outbreaks in the country has dropped roughly by half in the past two years, and no new infections in fowl have been reported so far this year to the Paris-based World Organization for Animal Health.

Health authorities have been monitoring H5N1 for more than a decade for any sign that it’s becoming as contagious as seasonal flu. While millions of birds have been infected, fewer than 400 people are reported to have contracted the illness, of which almost 250 have died, according to the Geneva-based World Health Organization.

The world is closer to another flu pandemic than at any time since 1968, when the last of the previous century’s three pandemics occurred, according to the WHO. The H5N1 virus has spread to more than 60 countries and caused at least 6,500 poultry outbreaks since 2003.

Source: Bloomberg

WHO launches Vietnamese website

The World Health Organization (WHO) has launched a bilingual website enabling easier access to Vietnam-specific health information.

The site, http://www.wpro.who.int/vietnam, written in Vietnamese and English, offers press releases, updated information about WHO programs and upcoming events in the country and the region, as well as access to the UN agency’s library.

“The site is an excellent one-stopshop for anyone wanting to learn about WHO Vietnam – what we do, our goals, mission, challenges and achievements... Delivering timely and easy to understand health information for everyone is an important part of WHO’s work,” said Jean-Marc Olivé, WHO Representative in the country.

A media page, stories from the field, recruitment details, documents, publications and links to the WHO’s major partners will also be available on the website.

The WHO works across more than 30 program areas in Vietnam - from infectious disease control and food safety to maternal health and injury prevention.

Reported by Thanh Van

California woman makes history with healthy octuplets

In only the second time in US medical history, a woman in California has given birth to eight babies, who remain in intensive care but are in a stable condition.

Dozens of medical workers in four delivery rooms helped welcome the healthy octuplets in only five minutes at a medical center Monday in Bellflower, 30 kilometers (18 miles) south of Los Angeles.

"Today we had an unprecedented, very exciting day when we, our team of 46 physicians, nurses as well as respiratory therapists delivered eight babies, all alive born and very vigorous," said Karen Maples, an obstetrician/gynecologist at the hospital managed by the Kaiser Permanente group.

Maples said the babies were born premature by nine and a half weeks, between 10:33 am and 10:38 am (1833 GMT and 1838 GMT). They weighed between 1.5 pounds (680 grams) and 3.4 pounds (1.54 kg).

The doctors and mother, who requested anonymity for her children, had expected seven babies.

"After we got to baby G, which is what we expected, we were surprised by the arrival of baby H!" said Maples at a press conference.

"It's quite easy to miss a baby when you have seven. Performing an Ultrasound is very difficult," admitted another doctor Harold Henry.

The babies were resuscitated at birth and are "all doing good," according to Mandhir Gupta, head of neonatology at the center.

"All of them are in stable condition. Two of them have breathing tubes and are on a ventilator. A third one also needs some oxygen. The others are breathing (on their own) and doing well," he said.

"They face many obstacles, weight is a concern, (the smaller one) has a long way to go."

Although not commenting on the identity of the mother, Gupta said she is "doing very, very well, she's really excited that she got all of these babies, and that they're doing good so far."

"She's going to breastfeed them," he added. "She's a strong woman."

In a press release, Kaiser Permanente said it was only the second time octuplets have been born and lived through the day.

Local California television station KCAL9 said the first occurrence in US history was in Texas a decade ago, but one of the infants died a week after being born.

Source: AFP

Surrounded by friends? It's all in your genes


Women are silhouetted as they drink at a party in a bar in central London in this December 6, 2004 file photograph.

Are you a social butterfly, or do you prefer being at the edge of a group of friends? Either way, your genes and evolution may play a major role, U.S. researchers reported on Monday.

While it may come as no surprise that genes may help explain why some people have many friends and others have few, the researchers said, their findings go just a little farther than that.

"Some of the things we find are frankly bizarre," said Nicholas Christakis of Harvard University in Massachusetts, who helped conduct the study.

"We find that how interconnected your friends are depends on your genes. Some people have four friends who know each other and some people have four friends who don't know each other. Whether Dick and Harry know each other depends on Tom's genes," Christakis said in a telephone interview.

Christakis and colleague James Fowler of the University of California San Diego are best known for their studies that show obesity, smoking and happiness spread in networks.

For this study, they and Christopher Dawes of UCSD used national data that compared more than 1,000 identical and fraternal twins. Because twins share an environment, these studies are good for showing the impact that genes have on various things, because identical twins share all their genes while fraternal twine share just half.

"We found there appears to be a genetic tendency to introduce your friends to each other," Christakis said.

There could be good, evolutionary reasons for this. People in the middle of a social network could be privy to useful gossip, such as the location of food or good investment choices.

But they would also be at risk of catching germs from all sides -- in which case the advantage would lie in more cautious social behavior, they wrote in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"It may be that natural selection is acting on not just things like whether or not we can resist the common cold, but also who it is that we are going to come into contact with," Fowler said in a statement.

Source: Reuters

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Local doctors to receive free oncology training in Singapore

Vietnam has been chosen as the first country to benefit from a Singaporean-funded medical training program for doctors in developing Asian countries.

Three Vietnamese doctors specializing in cancer diagnosis and treatment will be sponsored with €90,000 (US$118,380) to attend a three-year post-graduate program at the National Cancer Center Singapore (NCCS).

The grant coming from BNP Paribas Singapore – part of the European banking and financial group BNP Paribas – would be mainly for meals and accommodation, while tuition would be free, NCCS Director Soo Khee Chee said in a statement.

An expert panel selected two of the three from the HCMC Oncology Hospital and the Cho Ray Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City, according to BNP Paribas at the program’s launching ceremony early this week.

The other will come from Hanoi, but has yet to be chosen, said the bank.

The BNP Paribas-NCCS Regional Fellowship Program aims to facilitate the cross-porder transfer of oncology knowledge, skills and technology between NCCS and medical partners from the selected country.

Reported by Thuc Minh

Ultra-story


A doctor uses an ultrasound machine at Ho Chi Minh City’s Medic Medical Center.

A story about when and how ultrasound was introduced into Vietnam.

Twenty-three years ago Professor Nguyen Si Huyen, who was then working in Germany, came back to Vietnam in a hurry when his mother was admitted to Ho Chi Minh City’s Binh Dan Hospital with acute abdominal pain.

Using just their hands and observing, the doctors agreed without certainty that the condition was cholecystitis, or inflammation of the gallbladder.

Dr. Phan Thanh Hai remembers “we then hesitated over whether to perform surgery on her or not, because we had no means of confirming our diagnosis for sure.”

Although his mother finally recovered without surgery, Huyen was concerned about the shortage of medical devices in his country.

“We need to bring the necessary diagnostic devices to the country by all means,” Hai quotes Huyen as saying.

Huyen, now the president of the German Vietnamese Association of Cardiology, then asked his neighbor, ultrasound expert Dr. Ulirich Meckler, for help.

Together with Sybille Weber, the late general secretary of German-owned organization Help Action for Vietnam, which worked to provide funding for Vietnamese projects in various fields including the medical sector, Meckler launched a project to provide local hospitals with ultrasound devices and know-how.

In April, 1986, Meckler taught the first ultrasound class for 25 Vietnamese doctors at HCMC’s Gia Dinh People’s Hospital.

At the same time, Weber donated Vietnam’s first-ever ultrasound system, a Kontron Sigma 20, to Gia Dinh.

“It was the first time local doctors saw an ultrasound machine with their own eyes and had a chance to see the human viscera that way,” says Hai, who is now the director of HCMC’s Medic Medical Center.

They were very excited to make their first ultrasound diagnosis on a patient, Hai adds.

A female patient was soon admitted to the hospital with severe abdominal pain. The machine was employed without hesitation and using the ultrasound, doctors discovered a worm in her gallbladder, he says.

Meckler then kept Vietnam’s first ultrasound picture as a souvenir.

When the first class ended, Hai, who was then 27, was chosen to attend an intensive course in Germany. He came back a year later in 1988 with more machines donated by Weber. He also began training local doctors to use ultrasound systems.

That same year, France’s Aide Médicale et Développement (Medical Assistance and Development) opened its first obstetrics and gynecology ultrasound class at HCMC’s Tu Du Obstetrics Hospital.

A year later, the humanitarian organization brought cardio ultrasound techniques to Vietnam.

Now, the country has more than 15,000 ultrasound-trained doctors and over 10,000 ultrasound machines of various kinds. Each hospital has two to three machines on average, including color machines introduced in 2000 as well as 3D and 4D ultrasound machines introduced in 2005.

Reported by Thanh Tung

Sunday, January 18, 2009

A mosaic of Tet festivals

HANOI – Spring Exhibition 2009 (Vietnam Exhibition Center, through Friday)

Tran Van Tan, director of the Vietnam Exhibition Center, says this year’s Spring Exhibition will be the largest in its 17-year history, with 500 businesses showcasing products from around the national at some 800 stalls.

Visitors to the Hanoi event can try various specialty products from several provinces, including ruou can Hoa Binh (local rice wine from Hoa Binh Province in the north), Nam Roi grapefruits from the Mekong Delta province of Vinh Long, as well as products from craft villages in Hanoi and Ha Tay Province.

A new section displaying flowers and ornamental plants has been added to this year’s festival, which will also feature both traditional and modern theater performances as well as rock and hip hop dance and music shows.

HANOI – Hanoi-Thang Long Spring Festival 2009 (from January 29 to February 1)

Hanoi will open its Hanoi-Thang Long Spring Festival in Ly Thai To Park and the Hoan Kiem Lake area with a celebration of the capital’s 999th birthday on January 29.

On the same day in Thanh Tri District, a festival commemorating the 220th anniversary of the battle of Ngoc Hoi-Dong Da, in which General Nguyen Hue crushed a Chinese invasion, will be launched.

At the intersection of Dinh Tien Hoang and Hang Khay streets, an exhibition titled “Images of Hanoi 2009” will feature photographs of the historic capital.

The exhibition’s opening ceremony will include traditional musical shows and a lantern ceremony at Thien Quang Lake in which lit lotus-shaped lanterns – the symbol of Hanoi – are placed in the lake.

BA RIA-VUNG TAU – Flower Festival (Bai Truoc Park in the town of Vung Tau from January 22 to February 4)

The VND1 billion flower festival, titled “Converging Spring,” will be the largest the province has ever seen.

Nguyen Thanh Binh, deputy director of festival organizer Lam Vien Green Plants, said an area of 17,000 square meters in Bai Truoc Park would be filled with flowers and plants, along with 20,000 crates of fruit.

The festival’s featured flower arrangement portrays a small river flowing from the land to the sea carrying a boat filled with fish.

A 15-meter-high flower sculpture will depict the Hai Dang Lighthouse, the symbol of the town.

A large area will be dedicated to the life-like reconstruction of the southern countryside, including bamboo houses, fishing ponds, bamboo bridges and a garden of specialty southern fruits.

Ho Si Tien, an official from Lam Vien Green Plants, said the flowers would arrive tomorrow, so they’ll stay cool and fresh throughout the festival.

A calligraphy and photography exhibition and a tourism exhibit featuring Ba Ria-Vung Tau’s nine premier tourism projects – such as the Ho Tram Strip and the Atlantics Resort Center – will also be on display.

The flower festival is part of the Ba Ria-Vung Tau Culture Festival, which begins on January 26, lasting until February 4.

BEN TRE – The First Coconut Festival (Ben Tre Cultural Center, ends tomorrow)

The First Coconut Festival in the Mekong Delta province of Ben Tre celebrates tomorrow’s opening of Rach Mieu Bridge, which connects Ho Chi Minh City with Ben Tre Province.

The festival showcases investment opportunities in Ben Tre Province and features coconut-related games and an awards ceremony to honor Vietnam’s outstanding craft villages.

Some 250 stalls have been set up to showcase coconut-related products.

The festival also features several hands-on activities: knitting bags and carpets from coconut leaves and cooking with coconuts.

BINH THUAN – The Phan Thiet-Ham Tan Fireworks Show (January 25)

Two 15-minute fireworks displays at two locations in Phan Thiet – one near Le Hong Phong Bridge on Trung Nhi Street and one in Ham Tan District – will light up the night sky on January 25 to welcome the Lunar New Year.

HO CHI MINH CITY – Flower Markets (beginning today, ending January 25)

Three Tet flower markets are taking over the city’s three major parks: September 23rd Park, Gia Dinh Park and Le Van Tam Park.

September 23rd Park, across the roundabout from Ben Thanh Market, will be the city’s main flower market.

In District 7’s Phu My Hung area, the Wonderland Park flower market will close this Saturday.

HO CHI MINH CITY – Nguyen Hue Flower Street and Banh Tet Festival (from January 21 until January 28)

Tran Hung Viet, head of the organizing committee, said unlike previous festivals, this year’s event would not feature a giant pair of banh tet, which in the past had set a Vietnamese record.

Instead, organizers will host banh tet making contests – open to both individuals and organizations – throughout the city on January 21. The selected entries that make it through the qualifying rounds will compete in a final round at Dam Sen Park the next morning.

The first-prize winner will receive the honor of offering the cake at worshiping ceremonies at the Hung Kings (legendary founders of Vietnam) temple, the Ho Chi Minh Museum and the Ton Duc Thang Museum on January 25.

Organizers will also donate thousands of traditional cakes to disadvantaged people around the city to celebrate the Lunar New Year.

The HCMC government said it views the Tet Festival as a special occasion for both residents and international visitors. The Saigontourist Holding Company has been the main organizer of the festival since 2004.

Nguyen Hue Flower Street, to open from January 23-28, will feature an array of flowers and ornamental plants, including many from the Central Highlands town of Da Lat. During the week, the scenic boulevard in front of the HCMC government office will be closed to all vehicles.

The festival will also include a parade and musical show featuring Vietnamese traditional folk and contemporary music.

Fireworks shows will be held at six venues around the city on the Lunar New Year Eve, which falls on January 25, the organizing committee said.

HO CHI MINH CITY – Tao Dan Park Flower Festival (From Tuesday to January 31)

Hundreds of booths will offer visitors the chance to experience the best of Vietnam’s Tet customs: writing cau doi (parallel poem lines), calligraphy, Vietnamese tea ceremonies, puppet shows and even an area for visitors and tourists to learn how to make Vietnam’s banh tet (a traditional rice cake).

On the morning of January 23, some 300 ex-soldiers – as well as local students and young people – will carry out a re-creation of the legendary Truong Son Road, known in the west as “The Ho Chi Minh Trail.”

Reported by Thuy Tien – Thuy Linh

Friday, January 16, 2009

Public advised serious caution against bird flu


Health officials are advising residents not to buy chicken directly from the market

Agricultural and health officials have advised the public to buy processed, tested chicken following two recent bird flu outbreaks in the northern region with one person affected.

Hoang Van Nam, deputy head of the Animal Health Bureau under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, said although bird flu has appeared in Vietnam for many years, people continue to eat fowl that have died of unknown reasons.

Nam blamed ineffective awareness campaigns for the problem, noting that local officials have failed to implement anti-bird flu measures that had proven to be effective.

Bird flu vaccines are available in abundance but were not being used quickly, he said.

Market vendors around Hanoi have complained about consumers turning their back on processed chicken, even though they were tested and stamped for safety.

People prefer live ducks or chickens and are choosing to have them killed and processed right at the market.

�Such habits help spread the disease when the birds are not quarantined strictly,� Nam said. �We have to try harder to make the residents change their habits.�

Deputy Director Nguyen Van Yen of the capital city�s Health Department said the campaign has to start with local authorities and health officials have to keep closer watch on every stage where bird flu can occur: from farming, transporting and slaughtering to selling.

Bird flu outbreaks were reported in Thai Nguyen and Thanh Hoa provinces last week.

Based on Health Ministry regulations, an area is officially recognized to be epidemic-free once no new cases occur within 21 days.

Earlier this week, authorities reported Vietnam�s first human case of bird flu since early last year, the victim being an eight-year-old girl in Thanh Hoa. (See related news on page 12)

Reported by Quang Duan - Minh Ngoc

Avian flu found in smuggled Chinese chicken

Animal health officials in the northern province of Lang Son have detected bird flu in chickens smuggled from China.

Do Van Duoc, head of the provincial Animal Health Department, said Tuesday that eight of 16 samples taken from the chicken tested positive for the H5N1 strain of avian flu, according to a report in Sai Gon Giai Phong’s noon edition.

The Lang Son People’s Committee has sent an urgent message to district and commune authorities calling for tighter control on poultry smuggling along the Chinese border.

The animal health department has given nine tons of sterilizers to border communities in an attempt to prevent bird flu outbreaks, as the Tet (Lunar New Year) holiday, which comes in two weeks, is a time when the trade and consumption of poultry rises sharply, as people hold large family feasts.

Both China and Vietnam have found human cases of avian flu recently, almost a year since the outbreak early last year.

Last week, an eight-year-old girl from north-central Thanh Hoa

Province contracted bird flu, and local health officials have said she is recovering. The girl’s sister died allegedly of unrelated causes on January 2.

Vietnam has reported bird flu outbreaks in Thanh Hoa and Thai Nguyen provinces.

In Hanoi, food inspectors have discovered the widespread use of counterfeit quality stamps for poultry to disguise that the chicken was from China, the Vietnam News daily reported Tuesday.

The AFP notes that in 2008, bird flu killed five people in Vietnam, raising the death toll across the country to 52, the second highest after Indonesia with 113 fatalities.

According to the World Health Organization, the number of human cases of bird flu worldwide since 2003 has reached 393, of whom 248 have died.

Bird flu mainly kills animals, but scientists fear it could mutate to spread easily among human beings, potentially sparking a global pandemic.

Source: Agencies (With additional input from AFP)

Sweden supports childhood cancer treatment in Vietnam

The Faculty of Medicine at Lund University and Lund University Hospital of Sweden are cooperating with the Vietnam National Hospital of Pediatrics to improve cancer care for children.

According to a press release from the Embassy of Sweden in Hanoi Wednesday, five doctors and nurses, from the university’s Children’s Oncology Center, are now visiting Hanoi as part of the cooperation program.

The program will work to increase the survival rates of children with cancer in Northern Vietnam with a focus on cost effective and simple solutions.

Vietnamese doctors and nurses will be invited to train at the University Hospital and participate in cancer work there. Meanwhile, doctors and nurses from Lund will work with doctors at the National Hospital for pediatrics in Hanoi and other hospitals in Vietnam’s northern region.

Lectures and workshops on pediatric oncology for doctors and nurses across Vietnam will also be arranged as part of the cooperation.

The annual number of childhood cancer cases in Vietnam’s northern region is estimated at 1,700. Few of them receive adequate treatment and even fewer receive comprehensive care. Recent international studies have estimated that only 5-10 percent of children with cancer in Vietnam live to see five years old.

Reported by Bao Anh

Will there be blood?


Students – Vietnam’s largest blood suppliers – join a voluntary blood donation day in Hanoi last November.

Hundreds of children need blood donations before they can spend the Tet holiday with their families.

It’s not the first time 15-year-old Tran Van Tri has needed a blood transfusion at the Vietnam National Hospital of Pediatrics.

The native of the northern Phu Tho Province has been visiting the hospital as long as he can remember.

His mother takes him to the hospital every few months for Hemophilia B treatment.

If the hospital has enough blood in storage for transfusion, Tri’s treatment period lasts ten days but the hospital always lacks blood and he’s often there much longer.

Dang Thi Cun, 14, from the northern province of Yen Bai, has Thalassemia, a blood deficiency. The girl may have to undergo blood transfusions for the rest of her life.

Over the past two weeks, Cun has been transfused with five 250ml-450ml bags of blood, but she often has to wait four days for each bag as there’s simply not enough in storage.

She grows weaker each day she does not have new blood but the doctors must use what little blood they do have for emergency situations.

In the days leading up to Tet, Cun and other patients are waiting for blood in hopes they can enjoy a healthy holiday with their families.

Blood department Head Duong Ba Truc says the demand for blood transfusions rises every Tet as families want their children to be healthy for the holidays.

But he says demand has outweighed supply for the past several years.

Over the past two weeks, the hospital’s Hematology and Blood Transfusion Department has had access to less than half of the 500 units of blood (a unit equals 250 milliliters) it has needed to meet demand, doctors say.

Pham Tuan Duong, deputy head of the National Institute of Hematology and Blood Transfusion (NIHBT), says another problem is that key blood donators, usually students, are too busy with semester examinations and Tet preparations.

Student blood donations account for 60 percent of all blood collected by NIHBT, institute Director Nguyen Anh Tri says, adding that the number of regular blood donors has been halved in the last year.

NIHBT has recently launched a campaign asking for blood donations from major companies, but many have failed to participate, saying they are too busy with year-end work, Duong says.

Urgency

Tri says the institute simply can’t meet the daily demand for blood.

Supplying blood for more than 60 hospitals in some 16 northern provinces, the institute has to distribute some 500 to 700 units of blood and blood products per day.

The institute says it needs some 10,000 blood units to meet its Tet demand but Tri says they expect to collect only 4,500 units.

Truc’s department is now treating some 1,000 patients with blood diseases, all of whom need life-long blood transfusions.

On some days, more than 40 children come to the hospital for outpatient transfusions but many of them have to leave with nothing because of the blood shortage, he says.

Some have to wait for as many as three to four days for transfusions, according to the doctor.

“We watch the children get weaker and weaker each day because no blood is available. We’re very worried,” he says.

“So, please donate blood to help them stay healthy during Tet and enjoy it with their families,” Truc says.

RED SUNDAY

The National Institute of Hematology and Blood Transfusion will hold a blood donation day – Red Sunday – in Hanoi in cooperation with local Tien Phong Newspaper this Sunday.

Time : 8 a.m. to 11.30 a.m. on January 18 (Sunday)

Place : Student Cultural House at No. 1, Tran Nhan Tong Street, Hai Ba Trung District, Hanoi

Source: Tien Phong

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Bird flu tests on people at risk negative, says health official

Tests conducted on people who come into contact with the young girl confirmed to have contracted avian flu have proved negative for the H5N1 virus.

The head of the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology (NIHE) Nguyen Tran Hien, said last Friday that the 37 people chosen for the tests were those who had reason to be near eight-year-old Bui Thi Thao from Dien Trung Commune in northern Thanh Hoa Province.

Despite the negative results, he has asked local health officials to keep close watch on the people�s health, Hien said.

Meanwhile, the institute has found that since December, six out of 12 villages in the commune have had poultry die of sickness.

Some families had many birds die, but failed to inform the local authorities and health agencies, it said.

On Thursday, Thao was showing signs of recovery, Bloomberg quoted a statement recently posted on the Government�s website.

Thao�s elder sister, Bui Thi Thuong, died on January 2, but her death may not have been related to the H5N1 strain of avian flu virus, the provincial Health Department Director Nguyen Ngoc Thanh had said.

The viral strain killed five people early in 2008 but no human deaths have been reported since last March. Vietnam has confirmed 52 bird flu fatalities among humans, the second highest death toll after Indonesia with 113 deaths so far.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has approved a project worth over VND120 billion (US$6.9 million) to use vaccines and control the flu epidemic from 2009-2010 period.

It has also asked concerned ministries, sectors and localities to take strict measures in dealing with the disease.

Source: SGGP

Health Ministry to assign more doctors to rural hospitals


Patients filing paperwork at Ho Chi Minh City Tumor Hospital.

Encouraging results from a pilot project that deputed medical personnel from big cities and provinces to work in rural and remote areas have prompted the Health Ministry to persist with the initiative.

In fact, the ministry is hoping that better organization will render the plan more effective.

Project 1816, carried out nationwide last August, has sent hundreds of doctors and medical workers to hospitals and medical centers in rural provinces and districts.

The medical experts stayed for three months at the hospitals to share their experiences and demonsrate their skills in an effort to improve services at local health facilities and ease the overload problem at higher-level hospitals.

�The project can benefit more people when the way it is organized improves this year,� said head of the ministry�s Medical Service Administration (MSA) Ly Ngoc Kinh. �The Health Ministry will be the body to assign medical experts instead of the hospitals� board of directors.�

Kinh said there was also a plan to extend the term of assignments for doctors and medical workers.

�The Health Ministry will suggest that the government should provide legal documention on the issue,� he said. �Doctors may accordingly be assigned to local health facilities for between three and five months instead of the current term of three months.�

First results

Project 1816 sent 619 doctors and medical workers to hospitals in 56 provinces and thousands of patients have benefited from the improved health services.

�A team of doctors from higher-level hospitals, being assigned for a few months, has improved our staff much more than when we sent them for refresher courses for years,� said the director of a hospital that benefitted from the project. �Our staff made great improvements after being practically instructed by them.�

He said the assigned doctors had also helped them with managing work.

MSA�s Kinh said most of the knowledge being transferred was basic and practical to meet the demands of local hospitals.

�With the support from central and higher-level hospitals, healthcare quality has been improved remarkably at local facilities,� he said.

�This will reduce the number of patients who don�t feel safe when being treated at local hospitals. Moreover, the move also lessens possible errors caused by doctors at local hospitals,� he added.

Kinh said that central hospitals were also helping themselves by lending their staff because the project was helping solve a major overloading problem, part of which was that many patients were coming to central and other major hospitals with diseases and illnesses that were not serious and could easily be treated at local clinics.

Quality care matters more

The project was designed to fight the actual cause of the overload facing hospitals in big cities and provinces, but several measures implemented recently hadn�t improved the situation.

�It has been proven in reality that having more beds and constructing more hospitals hasn�t solved the problem,� said an official of the Ho Chi Minh City Health Department. �Most hospitals in HCMC have set up more beds, and up to 30 private hospitals have been constructed in the last ten years, but the overload problem remains the same.�

He said increased investment would be more effective if directed at improving healthcare quality at local facilities and constructing some specialized hospitals, to ease the overload in big cities.

Health Department statistics show an increase of up to 15 percent in the number of patients at central and provincial hospitals in 2008.

The numbers of outpatients and people going to hospitals for examinations has increased by between 5.8 percent and 13.4 percent every year since 2004. The number of patients admitted to hospitals, meanwhile, has been rising by between 7.2 percent and 12.3 percent in the same period.

Up to three patients sharing a bed and beds being installed in lobbies and corridors have become common sights at central hospitals, including Bach Mai, the National Hospital of Endocrinology in Hanoi and the Cho Ray and Tumor hospitals in HCMC.

A recent survey of 194 hospitals nationwide found that they had exceeded the year�s plan to have more beds by 115 percent.

Many hospitals had to extend working hours, enforce outpatient treatment and shorten the treatment duration of inpatients.

According to the Health Department, for every 1,000 residents, there are only 1.73 hospital beds available. The government has set a target to increase this to 2.05 beds per 1,000 residents by 2010.

Reported by Lien Chau - Thanh Tung

Asians among the world’s most underweight citizens


People walking at the Le Van Tam Park in HCMC’s District 1 Monday. Walking is the most popular form of exercise for Vietnamese wanting to lose weight, according to a Nielsen survey.

The Asia Pacific region has the highest percentage of self-reported underweight citizens but also records one of the highest numbers of people trying to lose weight, a survey has found.

In a global survey conducted last September, 26 percent of Vietnamese respondents said they believed they were underweight, while 45 percent said they were trying to lose weight.

The survey, released Monday by US-headquartered market researcher The Nielsen Company, found that besides the Asia Pacific region, Latin America and emerging markets were the most underweight areas.

In the Asia Pacific region, more than half of the respondents scored themselves as “underweight” (12 percent) or “about the right weight” (41 percent). The region also had one of the highest percentages of people trying to lose weight (53 percent).

The survey, part of Nielsen’s Global Online Consumer Survey series, was conducted online at the end of September 2008 in 52 countries.

It says that 50 percent of the respondents in all countries considered themselves overweight with a majority of them saying they planned to change their diet or exercise more in order to lose weight.

But each region had its own views and approaches to diet and exercise, the survey found.

Different choices of exercises

Within Asia Pacific, 18 percent of Vietnamese said they exercised every day, just second to Indonesians with 22 percent, while nine percent of Vietnamese said they never exercise.

More than half of the Vietnamese who exercise spend less than 30 minutes on a workout (57 percent) and 35 percent spend 30 to 60 minutes, the survey found.

The most popular form of exercise for Vietnamese was walking, which accounted for 43 percent, followed by running/jogging, yoga/pilates, team sports, racquet sports and swimming.

Walking was far and away the exercise of choice in all five regions, followed by working out at the gym in four of five regions, according to the survey.

No Vietnamese respondents said they were planning to play golf this year.

The government last September suspended new licenses for golf courses in an effort to preserve land for rice cultivation and protect poor farmers.

The Nielson survey also revealed Asia Pacific residents do the best job of managing their weight but exercised less than any other region, with 58 percent saying they worked out at least once a week.

On the other hand, North Americans claim to be the most overweight of any region, yet they self-report the highest levels of exercise, with 70 percent stating they worked out once a week or more.

Emerging market natives were the most likely to claim that they never exercised, while maintaining a good body weight, perhaps because of a better overall diet and a lifestyles that involved walking and fewer sedentary jobs, according to the survey.

Dieting tactics

Of the 45 percent of Vietnamese who want to lose weight, 78 percent said they would do so by eating more natural fresh foods, cutting down on fats (76 percent), chocolate and sugar (62 percent).

Globally, 69 percent said they would cut down on fats, 65 percent on chocolate and sugar and 53 percent would eat more natural fresh foods.

When asked where they got the best information about diet and healthy eating, 68 percent of respondents cited doctors and medical professionals while 36 percent relied on the internet, the survey found.

Roughly half of the consumers were confused by the barrage of diet and healthy eating information available in the marketplace, much of which was conflicting, the Nielsen survey revealed.

Reported by An Dien

Doctors report first drug hypersensitivity syndrome

Doctors from the Hue Central Hospital believe they are treating the first Vietnamese cases of drug rash with eosinophilia and systemic symptoms (DRESS) syndrome, also known as drug hypersensitivity syndrome.

Two patients, both from central Thua Thien-Hue Province, developed DRESS, a severe drug reaction, after taking Allopurinol medicine prescribed to treat gout.

During the first week of using the drug, the two patients reported red skin, itchiness and a fever of 39.5 degrees Celcius.

Since DRESS was first recognized in the world in 1996, 94 people have been diagnosed with the condition, which also has a high death rate.

Reported by Bui Ngoc Long

Respiratory diseases rife as mercury plunges


A child is treated at Ho Chi Minh City Children’s Hospital No. 1. The recent cold snap has sent many children and elderly patients to hospitals suffering from respiratory-related diseases.

Ho Chi Minh City hospitals have been flooded with sick children and elderly patients, struck down with respiratory-related diseases brought on by the recent cold snap.

At HCMC Children’s Hospital No. 1, half of the 150 respiratory patients who come for examination each day and eight out of 14 at the emergency room are bronchiole inflammation patients, said Tran Anh Tuan, dean of the hospital’s Respiratory Faculty.

Pneumonia and asthma cases are also common, Tuan said, adding that most patients were aged under five.

He said usually the number of respiratory cases fell at this time of year but this year the opposite had occurred.

Nguyen Phuong Hoa Binh, head of the Respiratory Faculty No. 1 at HCMC Children’s Hospital No. 2, reported the same situation.

Tuan said bronchiole inflammation appeared similar to a cold in the first two days but could develop into breathing difficulties, pneumonia and collapsed lungs, all of which can be fatal.

Binh warned parents that the disease is transmitted via direct contact.

Le Tien Dung, head of HCMC’s Nguyen Tri Phuong Hospital’s Respiratory Faculty, said usually staff could concentrate on cleaning the facility for Tet (Lunar New Year) holiday at this time of year.

But this year, wards are overflowing with patients, mostly elderly, Dung said.

Pneumonia, bronchial asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) top the list of cases, he said.

Dung said the cold weather has worsened the COPD conditions of many old people, forcing them to hospitals.

Respiratory diseases had led to a 40 percent increase in the number of patients going to Nguyen Trai Hospital, hospital Director Ly Le Thanh said.

Nghiem Huu Thanh, director of Hanoi Acupuncture Hospital, reported more asthma and allergy cases.

Doctors have advised children and the elderly to keep their chest and neck warm, especially when outdoors.

Temperatures are forecast to fall further in coming days to 17 degrees Celsius in HCMC and around 20 degrees Celsius in the Mekong Delta region on Friday, said Le Thi Xuan Lan from the Southern Regional Hydro-meteorological Center.

According to the National Center for Hydrometeorology Forecasting, it will be very cold in the northern region, with temperatures falling by 7 to 10 degrees Celsius at night.

Reported by Thanh Nien staff

Monday, January 5, 2009

Health officials to step up food safety checks for Tet


Shoppers at a supermarket in Hanoi. Health officials will conduct surprise checks in nine cities and provinces in a bid to ensure food safety during the coming Tet holiday.

Central and local agencies Monday began inspecting food hygiene and safety conditions as the Tet (Lunar New Year) season approaches and demand for food and foodstuffs begins to rise.

The Ministry of Health has set up three teams to inspect food safety conditions next month in nine cities and provinces, Nguyen Thanh Phong, deputy head of the ministry’s Food Safety and Hygiene Bureau, has announced.

The localities subject to unannounced inspections are Hanoi and the provinces of Lang Son and Bac Ninh in the north; and in the south, Ho Chi Minh City, Can Tho City and the provinces of Binh Duong, Tay Ninh, Soc Trang and Ca Mau.

Inspectors will check the production, processing and selling of food products in these areas, as well as services at local restaurants.

“Food demand always surges at the year end, usually by several dozens times compared to ordinary days, thus food safety during this time of the year is always a big concern,” Phong said.

He said around 80 percent of more than 497,000 food producers and processors nationwide are small scale enterprises and some household businesses fail to equip themselves with high-quality facilities to meet food safety standards.

The Health Ministry has also asked the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development for instructions on detecting banned substances in food items, Phong added.

In Hanoi, six food safety inspection teams have been formed, according to Hanoi Health Department Director Le Anh Tuan.

The teams will work on many products including drinks, sausages, fermented pork rolls, cookies and jam, nuts and seeds rich in oil, and additives, Tuan said.

Meanwhile, Chief Inspector of HCMC Health Department Nguyen Minh Hung said an inspection team of 55 members is ready for the Tet food season.

The officials, including those from the department, the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, the Veterinary Bureau, the Market Management Bureau and the Public Health Hygiene Institute, will start working tomorrow, Hung said.

Inspections by several district officials Monday have shown that producers and sellers this year “have done a better job” in ensuring food safety conditions, he noted.

“We’ll pay utmost attention to the products’ origins and will strictly penalize any violator,” Hung promised.

Health officials expressed special concern about fake alcohol products after a recent inspection by the Health Ministry in six northern provinces found 17 out of 53 alcohol samples had more than the permitted levels of methanol, furfurol and aldehyde.

Tran Quang Trung, the ministry’s chief inspector, said many localities were not well staffed and equipped for testing poisonous chemicals in alcohol products.

Doctors from the Hanoi-based Bach Mai Hospital said the risk of being poisoned would be higher during the Tet holiday, when people tend to drink more.

Do Kim Son said that in recent years, the hospital has received people with alcohol poisoning during Tet festival, some cases rather critical, when the victims already had diabetes or heart-related diseases.

Nguyen Cong Khan, head of the Food Safety and Hygiene Bureau, has ordered more careful inspections of alcohol products.

According to Trung, many alcohol products, mostly homemade, are being sold with fake labels or with no labels at all.

Reported by Thanh Nien staff

Central Vietnam reeling as unseasonal floods wreak havoc


A farmer in Dong Hoi Town in Quang Binh Province struggles to salvage her crop

Five people were swept away by floods in the central provinces of Binh Dinh and Quang Nam Saturday, bringing the death toll from unseasonal flooding to nine, local authorities said.

At least 100,000 hectares of crops have been destroyed, thousands of homes damaged and major dikes breached by the flooding that has deluged central provinces over the past ten days.

The provinces of Phu Yen, Binh Dinh, Quang Binh, and Quang Nam were at the center of the devastation, the Central Steering Committee for Flood Control and Prevention said.

Several seafaring vessels offshore have also capsized in rough seas.

Scores of schools in the provinces have also been shut down while ornamental plants and vegetables meant for the Tet (Lunar New Year) markets have been destroyed, local authorities said.

Vietnam’s storm season usually sees typhoons and tropical storms from the East Sea hit the mainland, mostly along the central coast, from August to October.

But this year has seen heavy rains triggering floods and rough seas since late December.

Around three million farmers are bearing the brunt of the flooding that has submerged vast areas of paddy, and they are very worried they could lose the entire crop.

In Quang Binh Province, affected farmers are braving the cold weather to salvage crops that have been submerged.

Despite the persistent rain and the lingering cold spell Saturday, many farmers in the province’s Le Thuy District were reinforcing irrigation systems to prevent the floods from further submerging their crops.

But there has been no letup in the rain, and all the fields in the district are flooded.

“No matter how hard we try to salvage the crops, all our efforts appear to be in vain. With this [cold] weather, we are expecting a crop debacle,” a farmer told Thanh Nien.

Vo Khac Hoa, the district head, said at least 1,500 hectares of crops were under deep water and likely lost completely. The local government was struggling to drain the water and save the crops for farmers, he said.

Other districts in Quang Binh have suffered as well with farmers even sending their kids to the fields to bail out the water in the hope of salvaging something.

“Everything and everything will die if the rains and the cold spell continue,” said Dien, a farmer in Quang Ninh District.

Elsewhere, in Quang Tri Province, farmers are facing a shortage of rice seedlings for the winter-spring crop which began last month.

The incessant flooding has also prevented farmers from sowing hundreds of tons of paddy and they have resorted to using the grains for animal feed.

In Quang Nam Province, besides the dyke systems and vast areas of fish ponds being damaged, the stocks of ornamental plants and vegetables for the Tet festival, which falls on January 26, have also been destroyed.

At least 10,000 cattle in the province were also swept away by the floods, the local government said.

A task force from the Central Steering Committee for Flood Control and Prevention visited Binh Dinh and Quang Nam provinces Saturday to instruct repair and rehabilitation work.

The number of coast guards has been increased to save seafaring vessels and evacuate residents.

The work of repairing damaged houses and rushing aid to the needy is going on in many affected areas.

Vietnam ranked sixth out of 10 countries most affected by weather catastrophes from 1998 to 2007, according to the NGO Germanwatch report which filed the 4th edition of its Global Climate Risk Index 2009 at the United Nations climate negotiations in Poznan, Poland last December.

It also says that in 2007 alone Vietnam ranked eighth of out 10 countries devastated by weather-related disasters.

Last November, 1 1 people lost their lives to floods caused by heavy rains in the central region. A similar death toll there was recorded a month earlier when Storm Mekkhala swept through.

Reported by Thanh Nien staff

Thanh Nien blows lid of smugglers-officials nexus


Thanh Nien reporter goes undercover as the conductor of buses carrying smuggled Chinese goods through the Mong Cai border gate to provinces in northern Vietnam.

Buses make hundreds of trips from the Chinese border in Mong Cai carrying contraband goods with the connivance, even assistance, of local authorities.

Thanh Nien reporters began to investigate the phenomenon in December 2006 and handed over the evidence they collected to the Ministry of Public Security last month.

The ministry’s criminal police department (C15) recently reported that on December 13 and 14 it had caught two buses trying to smuggle in nine tons of electronic goods, clothes and firecrackers from China, worth more than VND1 billion (US$57,400).

The C15 officers took the buses’ owners and crew and the seized goods to Da Bac Bridge police station in Hai Phong.

All the seats had been removed on the buses to make space for the contraband while one of the vehicles had changed its license plate to evade the police. It had been seized by the Hanoi police a few months earlier while carrying VND500-million ($28,700) worth of Chinese smuggled goods.

The C15 is investigating why the bus, its driver Nguyen Duy Phuong and owner are free rather than in jail.

Police station besieged

To take the buses to the police station, officers had to use electric batons to control the drivers.

A couple of hours after the buses arrived, around 40 people who had paid the bus owners to transport the contraband for them virtually surrounded the police station, demanding their goods, Pham Xuan Phuong, a C15 officer, said.

They seemed set to ransack the station but were deterred by the sight of many officers, he added.

The C15 said dozens of buses are involved in the smuggling ring. They travel between Mong Cai bus station and destinations around the northern regions, sharing actual and fake license plates and delivering smuggled goods.

Hundreds of small vehicles travel over the border into Mong Cai every day, carrying contraband, which they dump at the bus station. The buses pick them up, Thanh Nien’s investigations showed.

Sometimes bus owners hire workers at the bus station to help with the loading. When there is too much stock, smugglers even rent warehouses at the station.

To foil authorities, several men are positioned at the station to keep an eye out for strangers and attack them if they show any interest in the goods.

Each time they carry goods out of the bus station, the bus owners have to leave VND60,000 to VND80,000 at the office.

An official without a name tag notes down the license plates of buses that have paid, a Thanh Nien correspondent discovered by pretending to be a conductor.

A conductor told Thanh Nien that if a bus does not pay, “an official will look for the bus owner the next day and ask for it.”

Bus owners receive 10 percent of the value of the goods they transport but if a bus is seized, the owner has to cough up the value of the seized goods.

Some motorists, called “barn owls” by the smugglers, are hired to drive in front of buses and inform the drivers if they see a police officer.

There are 12 buses carrying tons of contraband daily from the station to Bac Ninh Province; two use the same false license plate. When one of them leaves Mong Cai, the other leaves Bac Ninh.

Around 30 buses travel to and from districts in Quang Ninh Province, making at least two round trips a day.

Any bus leaving the bus station has to pass Km15 Station on National Highway No.18, where tax, police, customs and market management officials are stationed.

But every day 200 buses pass through with smuggled goods, each paying at least VND500,000, bus owners revealed.

Thanh Nien managed to go along with a bus owner to see what goes on at Km15 Station.

Owners and officials openly bargain over bribes with officials sometimes demanding “6” or “8”, code for VND600,000 and VND800,000.

Payments are made at the back of the station, in an office that is situated past several others. Strangers are thus easily spotted and chased away.

Reported by Hoai Nam

Chronic bed shortage a nationwide problem


Patients line the corridor of Tu Du Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City’s District 1, a common hospital scene in Vietnam

For years Vietnam’s under-funded hospitals have had more patients than they could comfortably accommodate, officials said at a Ministry of Health conference in Ho Chi Minh City on Sunday.

The infrastructure and medical equipment at many hospitals were deteriorating, the ministry’s Examination and Treatment Management Department told Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Thien Nhan and central and local health officials at the conference, which examined the medical sector’s work in 2008 and set tasks for 2009.

At central hospitals, such as K (cancer), Bach Mai, the Central Children’s hospital in Hanoi and Cho Ray Hospital in HCMC, two or three patients often have to share a bed, the conference heard.

Even larger hospitals, such as the 500-bed Saint Paul General Hospital in Hanoi, are overloaded.

Statistics from the department show hospitals are usually bursting at the seams, with 110 percent of beds used in 2004, 114.5 percent in 2005, 120 percent in 2006 and 123.4 percent last year.

And the problem is appearing to worsen.

So far this year, provincial hospitals have used an average 123.8 percent of their beds while central hospitals used 139.2 percent.

According to the department, for every 1,000 residents, there are only 1.73 hospital beds available. The government has set a target for 2.05 beds per 1,000 residents by 2010.

The numbers of outpatients and people going to hospitals for examinations have increased by between 5.8 percent and 13.4 percent every year since 2004. The number of patients admitted to hospital has been rising between 7.2 percent and 12.3 percent in the same period.

The number of Vietnamese covered by insurance has also risen to 36.18 million, or 43 percent of the country’s population, in 2007.

Meanwhile, chronic illnesses such as diabetes and heart disease have replaced contagious diseases as the main reasons for hospitalizations, accounting for 62.5 percent of patients admitted to hospital across Vietnam.

Health officials at the conference said hospital overloading was getting worse at central hospitals because of inferior equipment and services, and a lack of qualified doctors at district and province level hospitals.

The Health Ministry has planned to build new hospitals while upgrading the infrastructure and medical facilities at existing ones to shorten the time each patient spends in hospital.

Le Anh Tuan, director of Hanoi Department of Health, recently said that the capital will have to build 10 to 15 new hospitals to keep up with demand.

Hospitals in Hanoi and HCMC have been simplifying paperwork and treatment procedures in a bid to keep up with the increasing demand for healthcare.

Source: TN, TT

Vietnam has made significant progress in infertility treatment


A baby born from in vitro fertilization at Ho Chi Minh City-based Tu Du Hospital. Vietnam has made significant inroads in infertility treatment, including developing a new technique – spermatid culturing.

Recent achievements in infertility treatment in Vietnam have not only given fresh hope to childless couples, but also earned the country international recognition, according to local experts.

In the last week of December, the Hanoi-based Military Hospital’s Embryo Technology Center announced its success in culturing spermatids, saying that a baby had been born and six were expected to be born this year using the method.

Although the success rate now stands at 10 percent, it is notable that Vietnam is the first country in Asia to succeed in developing the technique, Vietnam News recently quoted Quan Hoang Lam - head of the center as saying.

Luu Ngoc Mai, the first-ever baby in Vietnam born from fertilization with cultured spermatids at the Hanoi-based Military Hospital’s Embryo Technology Center, and Doctor Quan Hoang Lam - head of the center

Initiated by Doctor Tesarik J. from Turkey in 2001, the new technique helps men who cannot produce sperms.

Men can have their spermatids – the cells that become spermatozoon (sperms) – grown into sperms in culture medium within 24 hours and then injected into their wives’ ovum for fertilization.

Leading IVM nation

“Vietnam is one of the five countries, including Canada, Japan, the Republic of Korea and Italy, which are leading in developing in vitro maturation (IVM),” Ho Chi Minh City Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility Association (HOSREM) General Secretary Dr. Ho Manh Tuong told Lao Dong in a recent interview.

Since the first IVM baby was born in 2007, it is estimated that Vietnam has introduced 4 to 5 percent of some 500 IVM babies that are delivered internationally, he says.

“The number of IVM babies in Vietnam has increased sharply thanks to the rather high success rate,” Tuong adds.

According to HORSEM statistics, around 50 pregnancies so far have been achieved using IVM, including more than 10 cases of twins.

Following the success of the Vietnamese program, local scientists and experts have been invited to report their IVM application at international conferences, including the first European IVM meeting held in Monza, Italy, last month, Tuong says.

The association has also been invited to take part in a multi-center study on

IVM babies in the world headed by Professor R. Cheng Chian and Professor Seang Lintan of McGill University in Montreal, Canada, he says.

During IVM, immature eggs, or oocytes, are retrieved from the ovary, then matured in the laboratory before being fertilized and implanted in the womb.

The method almost halves the cost of In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) and has a shorter time of 10 days instead of four weeks.

Moreover, it does not imply a potentially fatal side-effect of injections given to stimulate egg production prior to retrieval, like the IVF. The side-effect, which is very rare, is known as the Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome.

While new achievements are being recorded and newer techniques applied, Vietnam already has a solid base in IVF development, experts say.

The country marked its first achievement in infertility treatment when three babies were born in 1998 using the IVF technology.

Over the past 10 years, 10 IVF centers have been established nationwide and these have introduced nearly 5,000 IVF babies in Vietnam, Tuong told the Sai Gon Giai Phong newspaper recently.

Since 2004, Vietnam has also conducted IVF courses for foreign students from countries like Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and Myanmar.

Source: Lao Dong, SGGP

Thanh Nien blows lid of smugglers-officials nexus


Thanh Nien reporter goes undercover as the conductor of buses carrying smuggled Chinese goods through the Mong Cai border gate to provinces in northern Vietnam.