The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the Health Environment Management Agency under the Vietnamese Ministry of Health co-organised a conference in Hanoi on March 10, on the creation of a plan for inspection of accidents leading to injury in the 2011-2015 period.

The inspection system will be carried out in three phases, with the first phase from 2011-2012 to focus on three kinds of accidents – road, labour and child injury accidents – at 20 pilot hospitals at central, municipal and provincial level, according to a ministry representative.

The second phase, spanning the 2012-2013 period, will expand the system to 40 hospitals in cities and provinces, and the third phase from 2014-2015 will select three of the project’s localities to apply outcomes and implement intervention programmes.

Earlier, an action plan to prevent accidental injury conducted by the Ministry of Health during the 2008-2010 period had reaped good results, with over 80 percent of the centrally-run cities and provinces organising information work and raising knowledge about how to prevent accidental injuries. At the same time, 30 percent of the centrally-run cities and provinces had set up emergency aid networks and emergency assistance and 30 percent of the staff received training courses on ways to implement the programme.

Ten communes were recognised as safe communities at international level and 42 others in 13 provinces at national level./.