HÀ NỘI — The National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology (NIHE) launched an Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) at a ceremony today in Hà Nội.

The ceremony was attended by Deputy Minister of Health Nguyễn Thanh Long, Director of NIHE Đặng Đức Anh, Acting Deputy Secretary of the US Department of Human and Health Services Mary Wakefield, US Ambassador to Việt Nam Ted Osius and representatives of NGOs.

The EOC-NIHE is a cooperation project between Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and NIHE, under technical and financial support from the US government for Việt Nam to enhance detection and response capacities corresponding to global health threats.

This support is under the scope of the Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA) following CDC’s initiative since June 2014, and has until now reached 50 nations worldwide. The programme includes 11 discreet GHSA Action Packages toward three goals -- Prevention, Detection and Response.

The establishment of EOC-NIHE is the second major milestone in the roadmap of establishing an EOC network in Việt Nam, which aims to collect epidemic data from various sources, analyse the data and set up corresponding plans in case of an epidemic emergency situation.

EOC-NIHE is responsible for collecting epidemic data from 28 northern provinces of Việt Nam to build a national epidemic data source and provide warnings in case of abnormal occurrence of diseases. EOC-NIHE also connects with international EOCs worldwide, such as CDC Atlanta, WHO Western Pacific Region.

Along with facilities and technical support from CDC and other international organisations, EOC-NIHE will enhance NIHE’s capacity in data management, with the most updated and timely data, which will serve as the foundation for Việt Nam to respond to public health events in an appropriate manner. — VNS