Nine hospitals in Vietnam’s southern economic hub of Ho Chi Minh City plan to establish tuberculosis (TB) departments in 2011 to cope with the disease’s spread, leaders of Pham Ngoc Thach Hospital said. The TB departments will be opened at hospitals of Cho Ray, Thong Nhat, Trung Vuong, Nguyen Trai, Nguyen Tri Phuong, Binh Dan, Dermatology, Tropical Diseases, and Traumatology and Orthopaedics. The network currently comprised 21 hospitals, Pham Minh Cuong from Pham Ngoc Thach Hospital said, adding that the hospital will continue working with many private and public ones to get them into the city's TB prevention program. Under the program, the hospital has proposed the municipal Health Department to set up outpatient clinics in districts of No.11, Cu Chi, Can Gio, Nha Be and Tan Phu to diagnose TB in HIV-infected patients. The clinics in Districts 6, Binh Thanh, Binh Tan and Thu Duc will start providing the isoniazid preventive therapy against TB for people with HIV this year. The city-based hospitals offered medical treatment for 16,145 TB patients in 2010. Vietnam currently ranks 12th among 22 countries having the highest number of TB patients worldwide, with 150,000 new patients yearly. (Vietnam News Jan 21 p4)
