Rise of Diseases in Vietnam to Push up Medicines Demand in Next Few Years

Vietnam’s medicine market will likely see robust growth in the next five years as the country is seeing a rising number of patients suffering from diabetes, heart disease, respiratory problem, dengue fever and hand-foot-mouth disease. As the fastest growing pharmaceutical market in Southeast Asia, the Vietnamese market is projected to hit $8 billion in value in 2020 from $3.3 billion in 2013, marking an annual growth rate of 15.4%, according to research and consulting firm GlobalData. As Vietnam continues to boost infrastructure and socioeconomics development, there will be unavoidable aftereffects such as rapid urbanization, rising pollution, and changing lifestyle. Vietnamese will require better healthcare and consume more medicines to deal with physical ailments resulted from these changes. Non-communicable diseases, such as hypertension, diabetes, cancer, and lung congestion, account for 72% of the 500,000 annual death cases in Vietnam, said Deputy Minister of Health Nguyen Thanh Long. In the 2002-2012 period, the country saw an increase of 211% in the number of diabetes patients, becoming one of the ten countries worldwide with the highest growth rate of diabetics, according to the Ho Chi Minh City Nutrition Center. In 2014, the country reported 3.3 million cases of diabetes, data from the International Diabetes Federation showed. In Vietnam, cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death, accounts for one fourth of the people who die young. By 2017, the country is estimated to have one fifth of its population, which would be over 90 million by then, suffer from heart-related disease and high blood pressure. Since the beginning of this year, Vietnam has reported more than 10,000 dengue fever cases, up 25.4% on year, in 41 provinces and cities, with eight fatal cases, according to the Ministry of Health. In 2014, Vietnam marked the sharpest decrease in the number of dengue fever cases, which were at 30,000 with fewer than 30 fatal cases. In addition, with a workforce of over 53.6 million people, Vietnam has nearly 28,000 laborers developing occupational diseases, the MoH said in a report on lung cancer and work-related lung illnesses. Given such a large demand for good medical services and treatment, many foreign companies have invested in Vietnam in recent years. There are 171 pharmaceutical companies in the Southeast Asian country, of which 9% are foreign invested enterprises (FIEs) and 4% are joint ventures. The biggest project to date is the $75 million plant of French drug-maker Sanofi in HCMC, which is also Sanofi’s third plant in Vietnam. Sanofi General Director Eric NG said each year the Sanofi Vietnam invests more than EUR1 million in new production equipment, high technology, and new products. The Vietnamese government has been revamping its healthcare infrastructure since 2008 after allocating a budget of nearly VND17 trillion ($779 million) for building and upgrading hospitals across the nation. Vietnam spent roughly 6.6% of its GDP on healthcare in 2012, according to data from the World Health Organization, compared to 2% in Myanmar, 4.5% in Laos and 5.6% in Cambodia.  (Nguoi Lao Dong – Laborer July 6 p8D)