Vietnam is intensifying efforts to prevent non-infectious diseases and considers it the top priority in the country’s health care policies and strategies, said Ambassador Le Hoai Trung.

The Ambassador, who is Head of the Vietnamese permanent mission to the UN, made the affirmation at the UN high-level meeting on non-infectious diseases in New York on Sept. 19-20.

Like many developing countries in particular and the international community in general, Vietnam is facing the rapid increase of non-infectious diseases, doubling the burden on the health sector, the ambassador said.

However, Vietnam has obtained progresses in control of non-infectious diseases thanks to policies and programmes including the national strategy on nutrition, programmes under the UN Framework Agreement on tobacco control, policies on fighting alcohol overuse and the establishment of non-infectious diseases monitoring systems. The country has built a national target programme to prevent non-infectious diseases in the 2011-2015 period with an investment capital of 700 billion VND (33.4 million USD), Ambassador Trung informed the conference.

Ambassador Trung affirmed that Vietnam welcomes all regional and international initiatives to fight non-infectious diseases and appreciates efforts by the World Health Organisation to raise people’s awareness about this issue.

Vietnam commits to boost international cooperation and support efforts to fight non-infectious diseases in Vietnam and the world in the coming time./.