Dr. Dinh Van Luong - Director of the Central Lung Hospital, Head of the National Tuberculosis Control Program - said at the Conference on implementing the Prime Minister's Official Dispatch No. 25/CD-TTg on strengthening tuberculosis prevention and control and the 2024 National Tuberculosis Control Program Review Meeting: Starting this year, the National Tuberculosis Control Program will promote proactive detection in the community, active detection at medical facilities to detect the maximum number of tuberculosis patients in the community for the earliest treatment.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO) report in 2023, Vietnam is currently a country with a high burden of tuberculosis, ranking 11th out of 30 countries with the highest number of tuberculosis patients globally, and also ranking 11th out of 30 countries with the highest burden of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis in the world.
In its 2023 report, WHO estimated that Vietnam would have 172,000 more people with TB and about 13,000 deaths from TB, higher than the number of deaths from traffic accidents. However, currently, the number of TB patients detected and reported to the National Tuberculosis Control Program annually in Vietnam only accounts for about 60% of the estimated number of TB patients (about 106,000 patients). Thus, there will be about 40% of TB patients who have not been detected and treated in the community. TB is truly a problem that affects the economy of each family in particular and the country in general.
In the first 6 months of 2024, the total number of detected patients was 48,790, lower than the same period in 2023 and equivalent to the same period in 2022; the total number of detected TB patients referred by public and private health care was 13,440 (accounting for 27.5%).
The National Tuberculosis Control Program is actively handling and supporting localities with difficulties in implementation, especially in proactive detection and screening of high-risk subjects according to plan.
Vietnam still has a heavy burden of tuberculosis and drug-resistant tuberculosis because people still discriminate against tuberculosis and understanding of tuberculosis in the community is limited; the rate of drug-resistant tuberculosis still exists in large numbers, co-infection with HIV...; at the same time, the tuberculosis prevention and control system was previously well controlled, but coordination between medical examination and treatment facilities and tuberculosis control programs of provinces and cities is still limited.
Dr. Nguyen Trong Khoa - Deputy Director of the Ministry of Health - emphasized: "Investing in ending tuberculosis is investing in sustainable development. Ending tuberculosis in Vietnam means reducing the risk of death for more than 13,000 people a year today and hundreds of thousands of families do not have to worry about having someone with tuberculosis."
To be able to access and record these patients, the TB control program needs to synchronously deploy innovative interventions, high-quality diagnosis and effective, rapid treatment; prioritize TB detection by combining many measures, including routine detection, proactive detection in the community, active detection in health facilities, public-private health coordination; expand access to TB diagnosis in general and specialized health facilities outside the TB control program system. And to further promote TB prevention and control, on March 25, 2024, the Prime Minister signed and issued Official Dispatch No. 25/CD-TTg on strengthening TB prevention and control.
