Vietnam will move to improve its public health system and step up programmes to prevent infectious diseases along with heart attack, cancer and hypertension in the future, a top health official has said.

Vietnamese Minister of Public Health Nguyen Thi Kim Tien revealed the plan at the ASEAN+3 Health Ministers Meeting that opened on July 7 in Thailand .

The event aims to discuss measures to conduct joint plans between ASEAN and three East Asian partners, Japan , the Republic of Korea and China, in the field of health care, especially the health care universalisation.

Vietnam is resolved to carry out the health care universalisation by 2020, targeting poor and ethnic people and children under six, Tien added.

At the meeting, the participants shared issues of common concerns and agreed to promote cooperation in the implementation of health care universalisation to 2 billion people living in the region in the future.

Accordingly, ASEAN and its East Asian partners will cooperate in the prevention and control of infectious diseases, in cases of emergency as well as in food security, human resources development and traditional medicine and pharmacy development.-VNA