USAID continues support for TB eradication in Vietnam by 2030
VOV.VN - The US Agency for International Development (USAID) will continue to offer support for the Vietnamese Government in order to eradicate tuberculosis (TB) by 2030, with new cases being cut by 90% and deaths reduced by 95%.
Aler Grubbs, mission director for Vietnam of the USAID, made the remarks at a workshop held on October 27 to review the USAID Support to End TB project in the Mekong Delta province of An Giang.
She said the project will be carried out in 2024 in 16 localities which have a high rate of TB incidences, with technical support given to An Giang to detect, treat, and build TB prevention plans.
According to the steering board of the Vietnam National TB Programme, Vietnam is among 30 countries with the highest burden of TB in the world. Treatment of the infectious disease has been promoted through TB prevention network at all levels in collaboration with state-owned and private medical establishments.
The USAID project, which has been implemented in nine provinces across the country since 2020, has helped to detect 15,000 people with active TB, as well as 9,000 others with latent infection. Technical support has been given to localities, enabling sustainable coverage for quality TB care at the primary level under the country’s social health insurance.
Furthermore, it has supported 74% of communal medical facilities to procure TB drugs to patients, while helping to upgrade the Vietnam TB Information Management Electronic System to better manage TB information, latent TB, and multidrug-resistant TB.
An Giang has the highest TB burden in the country, with thousands of drug-susceptible TB cases and hundreds of drug-resistant TB patients being detected each year.
Through the USAID project, An Giang detected 8,700 TB cases between March, 2020, and September, 2023.
Phan Van Dien Phuong, deputy director of the provincial People’s Committee, said the project will help An Giang to improve TB prevention system, as well as diagnosis and treatment of drug-susceptible TB and multidrug-resistant TB and promoting local resources in TB prevention and control efforts.
Meanwhile, Nguyen Hoa Binh, deputy head of the steering board of the Vietnam National TB Programme, stressed that local resources play an important role in ensuring effective and sustainable TB prevention and control, adding that An Giang should pen rational policies to support medical TB patients with difficult circumstances, as well as medical staff engaged in TB prevention work.
