President Nguyen Xuan Phuc (right, first row) gives the Hồ Chí Minh Award to Associate Professor Nguyen Viet Nhung.(Photo suckhoedoisong.vn)Hanoi (VNS/VNA) – A team of 23 s from different hospitals
and institutes has conducted a massive scientific research project to help
control (TB).
They have saved the lives of thousands who suffered from multidrug-resistant
and super-multidrug-resistant TB patients.
The project on research and application of advanced techniques in respiratory
diseases diagnosis and treatment in Vietnam, by associate professor Nguyen Viet
Nhung, director of the National Lung Hospital and 22 co-authors received the Ho
Chi Minh award.
The project includes 23 sub-researches.
The research results have been applied over three years to solve very difficult
respiratory problems in Vietnam.
They applied advanced techniques for TB screening, early diagnosis and
detection in the community.
It helped treat TB 44% faster than earlier methods.
“It is proof of the feasibility of the goal of ending TB globally,”
Nhung said.
The project’s results have inspired the global TB community with a breakthrough
2X (X-ray and Xpert) screening strategy to improve TB detection.
The 2X screening strategy was implemented quickly due to the COVID-19 pandemic,
but it diagnosed and further treated 2,854 TB patients in the community.
The proportion of detected is 1,248 per 100,000 people, much higher
than the estimated national rate of 322 per 100,000.
Nhung said that dozens of studies drew up the model over many years. It gave Vietnam
the position of a leading country and proposed to the World Health Organization
(WHO) strategic advisory council to spread the model on a global scale.
The successful application of advanced techniques for screening, early
diagnosis and development of new TB treatment has reduced the burden of TB in Vietnam
with a reduction of 4.5% per year compared to 1.5% per year globally.
The death rate in 2020 has decreased by 34% compared to 2015.
The reduction of TB disease in the past ten years has saved 8.7 trillion VND (354.2
million USD), equivalent to preventing 284,000 new TB patients if no preventive
measures were taken.
First time
Associate professor Nhung said the project’s speciality was that it established
a lot of “first times”.
The project was conducted all over the country, with hundreds of thousands of
people joining from central to local levels. It was the first time they carried
out research with a large sample scale of nearly 100,000 people.
For the first time in Vietnam, after 40 years of TB treatment history, the
group has successfully researched and set up a four-month TB treatment period,
which was an important step to ending TB globally.
Shortening the treatment time to only two-thirds of the current period reduced
the risk of serious side effects and improved treatment quality.
From this project, said Nhung, for the first time in Vietnam, a lung lobe
transplant from a live donor was successful with favourable anti-rejection
treatment results.
Even in countries with a developed medical system, monitoring and treating
transplant rejection complications after lung transplantation can be difficult.
Despite this, more than four years after the lung transplant, the patient’s
health is still stable.
“The research’s success has put Vietnam on the world system of a lung
transplant, bringing our country’s respiratory technology to a new level. Lung
transplants can be applied in many hospitals nationwide,” said Nhung.
During the peak period of the H5N1 outbreak in 2004-06, thanks to comprehensive
diagnostic, treatment and prevention procedures, Vietnam successfully
led H5N1 disease with a mortality rate of 39% compared to 61% in the
world.
The results of the studies have supplied advice to the Government and the
Ministry of Health to issue effective health policies, providing patients with
a comprehensive lung health care system from the central to the grassroots
level.
It plans strategies and national action plans for ending TB.
The work has made important contribution to promoting the end of TB in Vietnam,
which WHO and the international medical community highly appreciate./.
Source: VietnamPlus
