Representative of the health ministry’s Medical Service Administration and the Antimicrobial Resistance Research Centre, National Institute of Infectious Diseases signed agreement on developing the surveillance system for antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in Việt Nam on Monday. — VNS Photo Thanh Hải

HÀ NỘI — Japan will help the Ministry of Health improve the surveillance system for antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in Việt Nam as part of a memorandum of understanding signed on Monday in Hà Nội.

The agreement was reached between the health ministry’s Medical Service Administration (MSA) and the Antimicrobial Resistance Research Centre under the National Institute of Infectious Diseases of Japan (NIID).

AMR refers to a microorganism's ability to stop an antimicrobial like antibiotics from impacting it.

The NIID will help the MSA create a sustainable surveillance structure by developing a software module and co-operative framework to produce a national report on AMR and provide information useful for infection control in Việt Nam.

It will focus on collaborating between hospitals in Việt Nam, developing a software module customised to process Vietnamese data and providing the hospitals with instructions on how to use the system. It will also produce a national report on AMR, a feedback report for each participating hospital and develop a framework for collaboration and a structure for administration of the system in Việt Nam.

“Việt Nam is establishing an AMR surveillance network and developing a national database on AMR. The collaboration between NIID and MSA would facilitate the improvement of the surveillance system, to gain nationwide information about AMR and to help hospitals improve infection control in Việt Nam,” said MSA director Lương Ngọc Khuê at the signing ceremony.

AMR is an increasingly serious threat to global public health that requires international action. After being alerted to the crisis, a global action plan on antimicrobial resistance was adopted at the sixty-eighth World Health Assembly of the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2015. Việt Nam was the first country in the Western-Pacific region that developed and adopted a national action plan to combat AMR in 2013. — VNS