CDC in Vietnam

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has worked with the government of Vietnam since 1998 and is celebrating 25 years of partnership in 2023. CDC provides direct technical support and expertise to the Vietnam Ministry of Health (MOH) to build high-quality, sustainable public health systems and scale up programs that address priority diseases, including HIV, tuberculosis (TB), and influenza. CDC collaborates with the government of Vietnam to strengthen laboratory and surveillance systems to prevent antimicrobial resistance, infections in healthcare settings, and zoonotic and vaccine-preventable diseases. CDC also supports epidemic preparedness and response, helps expand local public health workforce capacity, and provides guidance on emergency management systems that strengthen global health security.

Download Vietnam Fact Sheet [PDF – 997 KB]

CDC Impact in Vietnam

Global Health Security

CDC’s global health security efforts in Vietnam enhance the country’s ability to prevent, detect, and respond to infectious disease outbreaks faster. These efforts help Vietnam reach the goals outlined in the Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA). CDC works with the government of Vietnam and partners to support:

• Workforce development, including the Field Epidemiology Training Program (FETP)
• Early reporting of disease outbreaks
• Prevention of disease transmission and infection in hospitals
• Strengthening biosafety to protect laboratory workers
• Strengthening biosecurity to prevent the public from accidental or deliberate release of pathogens
• Reducing illnesses and deaths due to antimicrobial resistance
• Strengthening Vietnam’s immunization program

HIV and Tuberculosis (TB)

As a key implementer of the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), CDC works with health agencies in Vietnam to reach HIV epidemic control. CDC leads the response to HIV, collaborating with the MOH and local partners to institutionalize and standardize biomedical and scientific innovations within the public health system. CDC also strives to eliminate stigma and discrimination associated with HIV.

To control HIV and TB, CDC staff:

• Provide technical support to the MOH, academic institutions, provincial HIV programs, community organizations, and the private sector
• Support high-quality and innovative service delivery
• Strengthen HIV lab and diagnostic capabilities
• Enhance HIV surveillance, epidemiology, and program monitoring
• Work with communities living with or affected by HIV to ensure equity and people-centered service delivery approaches
• Support Vietnam’s National TB Program to find, cure, and prevent TB, HIV-associated TB, and multidrug-resistant TB
• Help strengthen the country’s capacity to operationalize TB prevention and control tools, build the evidence for enhanced TB control and prevention, and use data to drive decision-making

Laboratory Capacity Building

CDC’s initial support to strengthen laboratory quality management systems to diagnose, monitor, and prevent HIV, TB, and influenza has expanded to a range of infectious diseases. CDC helped Vietnam develop national strategic plans, a public health reference laboratory network, a biosafety and biosecurity system, and strengthened data sequencing. CDC also helps scale up HIV diagnostics, routine viral load monitoring, and innovations such as recency testing and TB diagnostics.  CDC also facilitates collaboration between human and animal health laboratories to ensure that both can detect novel respiratory viruses with pandemic potential. Annually, over 5,000 samples from hospitalized patients in Vietnam are tested for influenza viruses and seven other viral respiratory pathogens. Human and poultry with positive influenza A results are sent to the World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Center at CDC for further characterization and potential inclusion as candidate vaccine strains.

COVID-19 and Pandemic Preparedness

Decades of global health security investments, partnership, HIV and TB control, and pandemic preparedness efforts built strong foundations that Vietnam leveraged to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. Vietnam was at the forefront of global efforts to detect COVID-19 outbreaks and was a leader in rapid deployment of vaccines, successfully achieving a 95 percent adult vaccination rate for primary doses. CDC’s technical staff continue to partner with the MOH to:

• Develop national guidelines for surveillance, quarantine, laboratory testing, and infection prevention and control (IPC)
• Strengthen laboratory testing so infections can be efficiently and accurately identified
• Provide IPC training to hospital staff to prevent COVID-19 spread
• Assist in investigations to protect communities
• Provide data analysis to the government to make informed decisions
• Provide training on sample collection, biosafety, and testing
• Support vaccine equity, increased demand, and distribution
• Support risk assessments regarding border surveillance and testing requirements

Influenza

CDC has partnered with Vietnam to provide support for influenza preparedness since 2005. CDC helped establish two National Influenza Centers that can rapidly detect novel or recurring influenza viruses. CDC supports surveillance of severe acute respiratory infections, influenza-like-illness, and severe viral pneumonia. CDC also strengthens national capacity to detect avian influenza outbreaks, respond to novel viruses in poultry, and continue testing in live bird markets throughout the country.