The Health Ministry plans to dispatch more teams of inspectors nationwide to oversee food safety, medical treatment at hospitals and clinics, the management and use of vaccines and the sale of drugs and cosmetics.

At a conference held on Aug. 13 by the HCM City Health Department, the ministry announced that 59,899 inspections were conducted in the first six months of the year.

Of those, 1,581 companies, shops and hospitals were fined a total 2 billion VND (112,359 USD). Forty-eight of those were told to suspend operations, they said.

More than 35,150 companies an
d shops were found to have violated food safety and hygiene regulations, the ministry said.

This year the ministry, which has a total of 40 inspectors, set up eight new inspection teams in nine provinces and cities to deal with A/H1N1 flu and acute diarrhea outbreaks.

Inspectors examine equipment used by drugstores, and pharmaceutical management and sales practices.

In southern provinces alone 692 drugstores were fined for violations, including selling expired drugs without certificate of origin or drugs of low quality.

Inspectors confiscated 71 kinds of cosmetics and fined 15 shops and companies for selling low quality cosmetics.

The ministry has worked with the Personnel Department to open training courses for inspectors.

It is compiling draft regulations on necessary skills for health staff until 2015, and is drawing up inspection procedures for cosmetics and medical equipment.-Enditem