Delegates discussed ways to help businesses approach Vietnam’s policies related to public-private partnership (PPP) cooperation in HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis (TB) and malaria prevention at a conference in Hanoi on October 10.

Co-organised by the Ministry of Health and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, the conference aims at bettering people’s access to quality healthcare services, said Deputy Health Minister Nguyen Thanh Long at the event.

Long also highlighted the organisation’s contribution to the work of prevention and combating over the recent past, adding that the fund is one of the largest sponsors of Vietnam and other developing nations in the field, which helps promote poverty reduction and realise the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Vietnam has spared no efforts to prevent and tackle the three infectious diseases over the past time, dynamically strengthening the partnership and calling for domestic and foreign investors’ involvement in the field, he added.

At the conference, delegated noted that the country is controlling the spread of HIV and gradually reducing the transmission rate among high-risk groups, but still sees an increasing rate of HIV infections through the practice of unsafe sex.

To reduce the rate of people falling ill to malaria, the health sector continues to encourage the community and the entire population’s involvement in the work and link activities against the infectious disease with the health system.

Vietnam ranks 12th among the world’s 22 TB high- burden countries and has the largest number of unreported TB cases.

At the event, participants also focused on discussing issues related to HIV/AIDS prevention and combating activities in the workplace, the coordination among the fund and private organisations, and community healthcare programmes.-VNA