Challenging tasks for preventive medicine
(VOV) - The preventive healthcare sector aims to eradicate gastrointestinal and insect-borne diseases and effectively control epidemics and emerging illnesses in 2013.
It will build on the success of the elimination of polio and neonatal tetanus, promote the antiretroviral (ARV) therapy, and prevent the mother-to-child transmission of HIV to ensure 80 percent of the patients will be given treatment in 2015.
It will also work hard to prevent non-communicable and school-related diseases and those of unknown causes from spreading across communities.
The Ministry of Health set the targets for the sector at a review conference in Hanoi on March 25.
Dr Nguyen Van Binh, head of the Preventive Medicine Department, said last year Vietnam controlled a number of dangerous diseases, such as cholera, plague, rubella, malaria, rabies, and meningococcal meningitis.
The infection rate of hand- foot-mouth disease increased by 39.4 percent, but the mortality rate fell by more than 4 times compared to 2011.
2012 was the fourth consecutive year the number of HIV infections, AIDS patients and deaths from AIDS continued to decline.
Professor Nguyen Tran Hien, director of the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology (NIHE), warned about an increasing incidence of infection and mortality from non-communicable diseases and injuries such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and mental illnesses.
In addition, he said, the malnutrition rate among stunted children remains high in the Central Highland, northern midland and mountainous areas. The number of labour and traffic accidents and suicides has also increased considerably in recent years.