Health Minister Nguyen Thi Kim Tien and US Secretary of Health and Human Services Thomas E. Price at the signing ceremony of an MoU on developing a national reference medical laboratory for Vietnam (Photo: VNA)

Vietnam and the US began cooperating in health care in 1979 through non-governmental organizations. Since they normalized their ties, the two countries have boosted cooperation in personnel training, vaccine research, epidemiology, and HIV and epidemic prevention and control. Since the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief was launched in Vietnam in 2005, the US has become the biggest donor for HIV/AIDS prevention and control in Vietnam. The US administration is Vietnam’s biggest donor for influenza response and has helped Vietnam to cope with malaria, TB, smoking, traffic safety, food safety, natural disasters, and infectious diseases. Since 2014, both have enhanced their partnership within the framework of the Global Health Security Agenda to detect, prevent, and respond to outbreaks. The US praised Vietnam’s proactive approach in this program and selected Vietnam to set up one of its 2 Global Health Security Centers.

Tran Thi Giang Huong is Director of the International Cooperation Department of the Ministry of Health: “Ho Chi Minh city has cooperated effectively with the US, especially in HIV/AIDS prevention and control. The Global Health Security Center in the city will help control disease there and 22 southern cities and provinces.”

The signing of the MOU and the inauguration of the Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) reflect the close cooperation in health care between Vietnam and the US. Deputy Health Minister Nguyen Thanh Long said: “In the near future, we will open more EOCs in the central coastal and Central Highlands. Under a new dispatch of the Minister of Health concerning functions of disease control agencies, EOCs will be set up in other cities and provinces.”