Vietnam’s health care sector has been making every effort to prevent the A/H1N1 flu virus from flaring up and causing more fatalities, said Health Minister Nguyen Quoc Trieu at the 60th conference of the World Health Organisation’s Regional Office for the Western Pacific.

The conference convened in Hong Kong, China on September 21-25, as the world is facing the likelihood of A/H1N1 flu spreading while the economic crisis has caused many countries to make cutbacks in their health care programmes.

The WHO General Director Margaret Chan and WHO Regional Director for the Western Pacific Shin Young-Soo, stressed that in the present context the international community needs to cooperate in more depth and mutual assistance and information exchanges are essential to prevent the epidemic from spreading and accomplish previously set millennium goals.

During his address to the conference, Minister Trieu thanked the WHO for assisting Vietnam’s health services.

Trieu said that the country has achieved some remarkable results in people’s health care services while reaching most of its millennium goals. According to him, the country has met almost all of its health care targets set for the 2006-2010 period.

On the sidelines of the conference, Minister Trieu met with the Hong Kong Department of Health to discuss how to cope with infectious diseases including H1N1 flu and develop health care insurance.

The Chairman of the Hong Kong-Vietnam Chamber of Commerce, Jonathan Choi pledged to provide 1 million USD in aid to the Vietnamese Health Ministry’s Programme 1816 to improve the capacity of grassroots-level health centres.

The Vietnamese delegation also took part in a meeting to hammer out the 2010-2011 budget programme for the WHO’s Regional Office for the Western Pacific and the ongoing fight against HIV/AIDS./.