Vietnam defeats COVID-19, ends TB

Treating TB patient (Photo: VNA)

Hanoi (VNA) – “Vietnam defeats COVID, ends Tuberculosis” is the main theme set by the National Programme against Tuberculosis (TB) in response to the World TB Day 2021 (March 24).

Associate Professor and Doctor Nguyen Viet Nhung, Director of the National Lung Hospital and head of the programme, said that the theme of the World TB Day 2021 – “The clock is ticking” – conveys a message that the world is running out of time to act on the commitments to end TB.

According to the World Health Organisation, TB remains the world’s deadliest infectious killer. Each day, over 4,000 people lose their lives to TB and close to 30,000 people fall ill with this preventable and curable disease.

According to a WTO report in 2020, about 170,000 new cases are detected in Vietnam each year, of whom 70 percent are in working age.

Associate Professor and Doctor Nguyen Viet Nhung, Director of the National Lung Hospital (Photo: VNA)

Last year, the number of new cases detected decreased by 3.1 percent year-on-year.

Although the figure is quite small compared with the decrease rate of 20 percent globally, Vietnamese people are more aware of the prevention and control of respiratory infectious diseases.

The political system also has sufficient information about the role of the health sector in socio-economic development as well as measures to address respiratory infectious diseases.

This is a chance for Vietnam to put an end to TB, Nhung added./.

VNA