Vietnam’s southern metropolis of Ho Chi Minh City has a plan to establish a center for pediatric organ transplants in Nhi Dong 2 Hospital given a rising demand for such types of transplants, said the hospital’s director Dr. Ha Manh Tuan. The hospital has carried out 12 kidney and eight liver transplant surgeries on children, Dr. Tuan said at the 10-year anniversary of the hospital’s organ transplant program. The first kidney transplant was conducted in June with the assistance of experts from Belgium, and the first liver transplant came in December 2005. The latest liver transplant was conducted on a child patient on Sept 4. In the northern region, the Central Pediatric Hospital has so far conducted 20 kidney and eight liver transplants. In Vietnam, the first organ transplant was carried out in 1992 at the Military Hospital 103 in Hanoi. The National Center for Coordinating Human Organ Transplants, the first of its kind in the country, was founded at the Vietnam-Germany Hospital in June 2013. Currently, Vietnam has around 96 people suffering from shrunk liver disease and half of them need liver transplants. (Sai Gon Giai Phong – Saigon Liberation Sept 6, thesaigontimes.vn Sept 5)
