Unilever teams up with Health Ministry to improve public health over 5 years

The signing ceremony took place within the framework of the program “Meeting in response to National Hygiene Day to Improve People's Health”.

Purposeful partnership towards ambitious targets

Currently in Vietnam, COVID-19 and other communicable diseases have basically been brought under control. However, environmental pollution, climate change, natural disasters (droughts, floods and storms), rapid urbanization, increasing demand for trade, tourism and migration...are potentially causing the emergence and outbreak of communicable diseases.

This requires maintaining and implementing programs to prevent communicable diseases and providing primary health care in addition to medical examination and treatment.

In parallel with the Government’s efforts and directions, the participation from the private sector and businesses helps to widely and strongly spread these programs, reach more people within the country, as well as to provide support with essential products to take care of personal hygiene and living environment sanitation. Unilever, for instance, can leverage their influence and products to bring health care and education programs to tens of millions of consumers across Vietnam.

Therefore, Unilever and the Vietnam Health Environment Management Agency (VIHEMA) under the ministry of Health  have just signed a memorandum of understanding to cooperate in implementing the program “For a healthy and sustainable Vietnam” from 2023 to 2028, towards the goal of improving hygiene and health conditions for 15 million people nationwide.

First, the cooperation program is aimed at communication and education, along with raising awareness and creating personal hygiene habits – such as encouraging hand washing with soap, house and living environment sanitation, proper nutrition…for the community to prevent diseases and protect health.

Additionally, the partnership is also an opportunity for Unilever and the MoH to together promote initiatives, innovative models and activities; as well as to build up models of civilized and clean hospitals, health stations, residential areas to proactively prevent and manage epidemic risks, provide continuous and long-term health care, thereby contributing to reducing the burden of diseases, fatality rates, and improving the quality of life for the people.

At the same time, Unilever will also support the MoH to organize workshops to share knowledge and training for capacity building, forums and conferences to connect and dialogue among parties. This contributes to the development of a sustainable medical environment from the central to local  levels.

Previously, from 2007 to 2022, Unilever along with their brands – namely Lifebuoy, Vim, P/S, Pureit, OMO… cooperated with the MoH in implementing several typical programs to help more than 22 million people with knowledge of personal hygiene habits of washing hands with soap, cleaning the living environment, preventing communicable diseases, such as “Washing hands with soap for a healthy Vietnam”, and integrating environmental sanitation communication in the program “Expanding the scale of clean water and sanitation in rural areas”, communication for “Green Clean Beautiful Hospital”, along with the program “Stay Strong Vietnam” and the “5K”, “2K+” communications campaigns to prevent the COVID-19 epidemic.

“The strategic cooperation program between Unilever and the Ministry of Health since 2007 has brought a positive impact on personal hygiene habits and living environment sanitation for more than 22 million people across the country, contributing to the overall success of the ‘National Hygiene Movement to Improve People's Health’. This also proves the close and effective public-private partnership between the Ministry of Health and Unilever Vietnam,” said Ms. Le Thi Hong Nhi, head of Communications and Corporate Affairs at Unilever Vietnam.

National Hygiene Movement

In addition to the MoU signing, the MoH, in collaboration with Ha Tinh Province and Unilever Foundation, also held a meeting in response to National Hygiene Day 2023 themed “Improving public health - For a healthy and sustainable Vietnam” in Ha Tinh city of Ha Tinh province. They aimed to garner strong support from the government, mass organizations, socio-political organizations, families and the whole society for activities to implement the National Sanitation Movement to improve people’s health, contributing to disease prevention and control, and public health protection.

A range of activities in response to National Hygiene Day 2023 include organizing a meeting themed “For a healthy and sustainable Vietnam”; holding communication activities on hygiene and disease prevention at the grassroots level; and exhibiting 10-year achievements of the health sector in implementing the National Hygiene Movement to improve people’s health.

During the last 10 years of implementation (from 2012 to 2022), the Movement had recorded outstanding results in terms of well controlling the poisoning to reduce the number of cases and deaths; doubling the rate of people maintaining the habit of washing hands with soap; and increasing the proportion of rural households having hygienic latrines. It has also helped to increase the clean water supply and the rate of clean water use in rural and urban areas, as well as at local health stations; ensure medical waste to be treated at hospitals; improve school sanitation; and especially improve personal hygiene and environmental sanitation to contribute to COVID-19 control.