More than 13,100 people with disabilities, including victims of Agent Orange (AO), received guidance on rehabilitation at home, and about 1,900 made progress, seeing improvements to their health and better integration with the community over the past four years. — Photo suckhoedoisong.vn

HÀ NỘI — More than 13,100 people with disabilities, including victims of Agent Orange (AO), received guidance on rehabilitation at home, and about 1,900 made progress, seeing improvements to their health and better integration with the community over the past four years.

These were some of the results of a project on rehabilitation in the community for victims of American chemical substances during the war in Việt Nam.

The closing ceremony of the project was held in Hà Nội on Monday by the Ministry of Health (MoH) in co-ordination with the Hà Nội University of Public Health.

Under the project, a network of more than 1,100 collaborators on rehabilitation was set up in 13 districts of six provinces including Lào Cai, Thái Bình, Quảng Nam, Quảng Ngãi, Đồng Nai and Bến Tre.

Speaking at the ceremony, Deputy Minister of Health Nguyễn Viết Tiến said that the model of early discovery and early rehabilitation for children under six with disabilities should be maintained and expanded.

Deputy Minister Tiến asked the health sector and concerned organisations to continue helping AO victims and people with disabilities access health examination and treatment services, as well as functional rehabilitation.

The capacity of providing health treatment at medical stations and rehabilitation centres should be improved, he said.

More training for medical workers in the field should also be given, he added.

The project’s results, Tiến said, expressed the Party’s, the State’s and the MoH’s care for AO victims and people with disabilities.

Since then, it had shown great humanity and political meaning, said Tiến.

Over the course of 10 years from 1961 to 1971, American troops and their allies spread about 80 million litres of chemical poisons on Việt Nam, of which about 46 million litres contained about 366kg of dioxin – a poisonous substance that has a serious impact on humans.

Every year, about 1 in 1,000 children are born with disabilities related to dioxin poisoning in Việt Nam, according to the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs.

At present, about 4.8 million Vietnamese people are contaminated with AO substances. Hundreds of thousands of them have died, and many live in poverty due to the disabilities associated with the AO poison.

By 2016, about 236,000 people across the country and their children who suffer from malformation related to AO poisoning enjoy preferential policies of the State and the Party. — VNS