Improving national capacity for detection and response to global health threats - Inauguration of the second Emergency Operations Center (EOC) in Viet Nam
The meeting was chaired by Mr. Nguyen Thanh Long - Vice Minister of Health, Mr. Tran Dac Phu - Director of the General Department of Preventive Medicine, and Mr. Dang Duc Anh - Director of NIHE. The ceremony welcomed the presence of Mr. Ted Osius - United States Ambassador to Viet Nam and Ms. Mary Wakefield – Acting Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services, United States. Also participating were international organizations who have been actively supporting Viet Nam in epidemic prevention and control, such as the CDC, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the World Health Organization (WHO), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and PATH. This is one activity under the Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA) framework adopted in 2014, which includes 11 Action Packages towards three major goals: Prevent, Detect and Respond.
The establishment of the EOC at NIHE is the second important milestone in the process to establish an EOC system in Viet Nam to collect disease information from various sources, analyze received information and plan to respond to emergency disease situations. The EOC at NIHE will play an important part in gathering information about diseases in 28 northern provinces in Viet Nam to build up a national data source on diseases and issue warnings about abnormal events of the disease. This Centre is connected to international EOCs such as the ones in CDC Atlanta and WHO’s Asia Pacific region.
Besides the support for equipment, US CDC also assists in human resources training to sufficiently operate the Center through direct training courses and technology transfer. The equipment system, technology and techniques will help NIHE in better management of data, faster and more frequent data update, thereby strengthening national capacity in response to public health events.
Also in the fourth quarter of 2016, the document on “Instructions on Emergency Operation Center (EOC) operations” was issued by Ministry of Health (MOH) according to Decision No.7247/QD-BYT dated 8 December, 2016. A launching workshop forthe document was also organized in January 2017. The document was developed with the aim of supporting the management and operation of EOC during normal operating periods as well as the activated state to instantly respond to public health events and threats. This document will be regularly revised and updated according to WHO guidelines and the actual situation in Viet Nam./.
(Source: MOH)
