Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Thien Nhan on August 31 visited several medical and pharmaceutical establishment in Basel city, Switzerland to share experience in training and seek opportunities for cooperation.

He called on the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (TPH), a world renowned institution for training, research and services in the field of international health development. The institute gathers more than 500 scientists from 40 countries to work, research, and provide medical services, aiming to facilitate and contribute to health development worldwide, especially in underdeveloped countries.

Nhan valued the institute’s research and training achievements and stressed that the Vietnamese government gives top priority to ensuring social security and people’s health in which the quality of training and human resources plays a very important role.

Vietnam wants to expand cooperation in education and training with countries that have advanced education, including Switzerland which boasts the renowned health and pharmaceutical industries, said Nhan.

He invited the Swiss institute’s leaders to attend the second Vietnam-Switzerland tertiary education forum to be held in Ho Chi Minh City in September 2012.

The forum is expected to be a good chance for Vietnamese medical universities and the Swiss institute to increase cooperation and exchange of researchers to support health development between the two countries.

TPH deputy director Nicolaus Lorenz told the Vietnam News Agency correspondent his institute has developed cooperation programmes with Vietnam since 2006, and it has so far trained three PhD researchers for Hanoi Community Health University.

The same day, Nhan visited Novartis, a leading group which provides creative health solutions. Alexandre Jetzer, a member of the company’s board of directors, said Novartis wants to contribute to Vietnam ’s socio-economic development through providing quality health services for local people.

Later, Nhan visited the Pharmacy Museum and worked with representatives of Interpharma and Rocher companies.

On September 1, the Vietnamese Deputy PM began a working visit to Bulgaria.-VNA