A patient at the Lung Hospital of Nam Dinh province has a health check. (Photo: VNA)Hanoi (VNA) – The diagnosis of tuberculosis at grassroots-level
healthcare facilities plays an important role in the fight against tuberculosis
as Vietnam stands at high risk of tuberculosis outbreaks.
Dinh Van Luong, Director of the and head of
the Executive Board of the Vietnam Tuberculosis Prevention and Control Project,
said grassroots-level healthcare facilities are a competent, responsible, and
dedicated force protecting the community against the disease.
Assessing the COVID-19 impact on tuberculosis prevention and
control, he said the pandemic delayed by five to eight years the provision of
essential TB services and increasing the global TB burden.
“Vietnam is still a country with a high tuberculosis burden,
ranking 11th among the 30 countries with the highest proportion of tuberculosis
patients and multidrug-resistant tuberculosis in the world, according to World
Health Organization’s Global TB Report 2023,” he told the .
During the pandemic, Vietnam’s TB fight faced challenges with the
over 20% decline in the number of infections detected in the community in 2021
compared to 2019 and 2020.
This put Vietnam on the list of countries with the highest rate of
reduction in tuberculosis detection in the world due to the impact of the
pandemic.
The TB death rate in Vietnam has been also on the rise, reaching
12,000 people in 2021, an increase of 35.8% compared to 2020.
The National Tuberculosis Prevention and Control Programme has
strived to launch the TB prevention task at all communes and wards across the
country, with 100% of the population getting access to the programme.
Fifty-one out of 63 provinces and cities nationwide have
established lung and tuberculosis hospitals.
The programme has expanded cooperation with partners such as the
Ministry of Public Security, Department of HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control
under the Ministry of Health, World Health Organization, KNCV Tuberculosis
Foundation, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as central
and provincial general hospitals.
Local authorities have committed to implementing the model of TB
detection in the community.
Everyone who has a health check-up at community medical facilities
will have TB screening and check-up for other lung diseases, high blood
pressure and diabetes.
Thanks to that effort, in the first nine months of 2023, the total
number of TB patients detected by public and private healthcare facilities
reached 26,300 patients, accounting for 33.4% of total patients.
This has demonstrated the efficiency of grassroots TB detection, Luong
said.
The official said the medical sector needs to strengthen TB
diagnosis at the community level, focusing on high-risk groups to early detect
and treat TB, looking towards ending the infection source in the community, and
soon ending the epidemic.
In 2023, one of the most outstanding achievements in the fight
against TB in was the application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in
the disease diagnosis.
The application of AI will facilitate the detection of tuberculosis,
especially cases that are easily missed or difficult to reach, Luong said.
The medical sector has also stepped up TB detection in the
community and at healthcare facilities by applying X-ray and Xpert testing for
diagnosis.
Thanks to active participation of the community level healthcare
system, in the first nine months of 2023, the National Prevention
and Control Programme detected 78,674 cases, a year-on-year increase of 1,909
cases.
Detection of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis during this period
also rose by 44% compared to the same period in 2021./.
Source: VietnamPlus
