Representatives from more than 20 French non-governmental health care organisations attended a conference on France-Vietnam health care cooperation held in Ho Chi Minh City on March 21.

Over 100 Vietnamese and French doctors and health experts at the event discussed four main topics, including collaboration in improving maternal and infant health, preventive medicine, training and research, and forensic medicine.

Dr. Gildas Tréguier from APPEL-Lorient said the conference gave a chance for both sides to share experience in health coordination over the past years, thus seeking ways to remove all existing obstacles and increase efficiency of their affiliation in the future.

In paediatrics medicine, the France-Vietnam health cooperation programmes in 2015 will focus on exchanging technical experience among senior professionals, he said.

Meanwhile, the programme will continue with humanitarian activities targeting vulnerable group, with special strategies on malformation prevention and screening, as well as improvement in access to health care services for poorest households.

At the same time, Assistant Prof. Ngo Minh Xuan, Vice Headmaster of Pham Ngoc Thach Medical University, said that in the past four decades, Vietnam and France have enjoyed effective partnership in health care.

Following the health cooperation deal signed in 1993, more than 2,000 Vietnamese doctors have been trained in France ’s hospitals, he noted.

According to the French Ministry of Higher Education and Research , Vietnam ranks ninth in the number of students studying in France with 6,295 students registered in the 2012-13 academic year. The figure has been stable since 2008, it said.-VNA