Reviewing 20 years of implementing the programme, the management board said that strong policies and increasing government investment in the field have garnered strong support from international governments and organisations as well as non-governmental organisations.

The Netherlands has provided timely and constant assistance to Vietnam in fighting TB since the 1970s. In addition to its own financial and technical assistance to Vietnam, the Dutch Government also joined the World Bank, the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in providing tens of millions of USD to Vietnam in controlling TB between 1994 and 2004.

Japan and the Republic of Korea have helped Vietnam train health workers and Japan has also donated medical equipment to a number of provincial and central TB hospitals with the aim of raising the quality of diagnosis.

According to the WHO, Vietnam already achieved the international goal of detecting more than 70 percent of TB patients and curing at least 85 percent of those patients as early as 1997 and has continued to maintain these results. The national programme has helped reduce the incidence of TB and the risk of contracting the disease by 6 percent in the group of middle-aged and elderly people.

However, Vietnam is facing many challenges such as medicine resistance and the increasing number of patients suffering from both HIV/AIDS and TB. The country also has difficulties in extending the national TB control programme to the poor and ethnic minority people as well as in ensuring financial sources for the programme.

The national anti-TB work will need an estimated US$48 million from 2007 till 2011.

VNA