Vietnam is one of the countries that have gained achievements infighting malaria, Deputy Health Minister Trinh Quan Huan said.
Ata meeting to review the country’s malaria and parasitic worm preventionprogramme in the 2006-2010 period and implement the plan for 2011, inHanoi on March 31, Deputy Minister Huan said that Vietnam reported21 fatalities from malaria in 2010, down 48.7 percent compared to 2006.
Inthe 2006-2010 period, 59 cities and provinces reported no malariaoutbreaks and 39 cities and provinces confirmed no deaths, Huan said.
TheDeputy Minister asked health staff at all levels to propose newmeasures in an attempt to complete eliminate malaria and applyinginformation technology in detecting and managing outbreaks.
In2011, the Health Ministry plans to strengthen health activities invillages, promote education campaigns to raise awareness of malariaprevention measures and try to reduce the malaria infection rate tounder 0.55 per 1,000 people and fatality rate to under 0.02 per 100,000people, Huan said.
Regarding parasitic worm control, Huansaid that Vietnam received positive support from the World HealthOrganisation and Asian Development Bank.
Thanks to thesupport, the National Institute for Malaria, Parasite and Entomologysuccessfully applied a programme to worm children from 2-11 years oldand women between 15-45 years old, and a project for infectious diseaseprevention in the Mekong subregion in 15 provinces and cities.
The Health Ministry will try to eliminate the parasitic disease filariasis by 2015./.