Ho Chi Minh City is keen to receive further US assistance to care for patients with terminal diseases and disabilities, and prevent mother-to-child transmissions of HIV/AIDS.

This was voiced by Chairman of the municipal People’s Committee Le Hoang Quan while receiving visiting US Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebeliush in the city on June 18.

The host hailed Vietnam-US medical cooperation over the past time, which according to him, has helped combat the spread of HIV/AIDS in Vietnam.

The leader expressed his belief that US and Vietnamese hospitals will continue working together in professional areas and scientific research, contributing to lifting the two countries’ ties to a new height.

Sebeliush said the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are working on a global health security initiative and will work with the Ho Chi Minh City Pasteur Institute to establish an emergency medical centre in the future, in an effort to help the city manage epidemics and emergency cases in the southern region.

She said she believes the two nations’ medical cooperation will bear fruit.

According to CDC Director Thomas R. Frieden, the cooperation project will maximise the capacity of Ho Chi Minh City and 22 southern cities and provinces in pandemic control by providing medical equipment, assisting laboratories at the grassroots level, and improving diagnosis capacity and human resources training in the fight against epidemics.

The same day, Sebeliush toured Children Hospital No. 1, the Centre for Consultation and Community Assistance in district 4 and a medical station in Cau Kho precinct, district 1.-VNA