Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, Malaria Finances $86M for Vietnam

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has pledged to fund $86 million for a Vietnam’s healthcare system support project in the 2012-2016 period. The project has two components: boosting grassroots healthcare networks and controlling medicine quality and pharmaceutical alerts, said the project’s Director, Nguyen Hoang Long, deputy head of the Planning and Finance Department under the Health Ministry. The project’s first component will be carried out in 15 cities and provinces, focusing on training 1,000 doctors, some 6,000 communal healthcare workers; opening intensive training courses on HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, mother and child healthcare, 16,000 medical kits to hamlets; and providing essential equipment for 80 district medical centers and 678 communal healthcare stations. The second component will concentrate on enhancing capacity of the National Center for Medicine Information and building a national voluntary reporting system and a response system to foster the safe use of medicines. The Global Fund has financed more than $405 million to assist Vietnam in preventing and combating AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria since 2002. Formed in 2002 in Switzerland’s Geneva, the non-profit fund annually provides aid of nearly $1 billion for activities to fight such three diseases in 140 countries and territories worldwide. (chinhphu.vn Jan 10, Thoi Bao Ngan Hang - Banking Times Jan 11 p2)