Viet Nam’s Ministry of Health (MOH) and the World Health Organization (WHO) today opened the first of three regional workshops sponsored by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to disseminate an important new set of guidelines on infection control in the country’s hospitals and clinics.
The two-day workshops for the MOH and provincial health workers in Hue (November 24-25), Ho Chi Minh City (November 27-28), and Hanoi (November 30-December 1), will promote the circular recently approved by the Minister of Health titled "Guidelines on the Implementation of Infection Control in Health Care Institutions," which will take effect on December 1, 2009. Following deliberations on the new circular, health officials will develop provincial implementation plans.
For more than 10 years, the MOH has actively worked to develop a national infection control program, beginning with its first infection control regulation in 1997. To ensure that the regulation remains relevant and consistent with evidence-based research, this regulation has now been carefully updated with the technical assistance of the WHO.
This circular is a landmark achievement for the Ministry of Health in their effort to improve the national capacity for infection control. "We recognise that hospital acquired infections are one of leading causes for the steep increase in disease burden and hospital costs due to prolonged hospital stay and excessive antibiotic use for patients," said Mr Pham Duc Muc, Vice Director of the Administration of Medical Services . "This circular is an important level document which consolidates the basic for organization, implementation and application of the general regulations on infection control in the health care facilities."
This circular will be the Ministry of Health's driving force for ensuring health-related activities are safer care for all patients, staff and visitors. It designates responsibilities to all health care departments, health care workers and health care providers for reducing of hospital acquired infections in public and private health care facilities in Viet Nam.