UNDP Resident Representative Caitlin Wiesen hands over the surgical masks to representatives from the Ministry of Health. — Photo of UNDP Việt Nam

HÀ NỘI — The UN Development Programme (UNDP) on Sunday donated 20,000 high-quality surgical masks to Việt Nam’s Ministry of Health (MoH) to help protect health care workers on the frontlines of fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.

Handing over the masks to the Ministry of Health, UNDP Resident Representative Caitlin Wiesen congratulated Việt Nam for its success in combating COVID19, with more than half of the COVID-19 patients fully recovered.

She reiterated the UNDP’s commitment to support this effort, building on the existing memorandum of understanding signed between UNDP and MoH supporting the health sector on readiness in response to climate change and capacity building for centralised procurement.

“The global COVID-19 pandemic has triggered a shortage of critical personal protective equipment, putting health care workers at risk,” she said.

“UNDP is helping the Ministry of Health procure critically needed personal protective equipment (PPE) and other medical supplies to support doctors, nurses and health staff at the frontline of this crisis”.

“We highly appreciate UNDP’s present of 20,000 masks for health and its assistance in procuring N95 masks for the disease prevention and control work,’’ said Nguyễn Nam Liên, Director General of the MoH’s Department of Planning and Finance.

UNDP has been working closely with relevant ministries and UN organisations to support Viet Nam to respond to COVID-19, as part of its mission to eradicate poverty, reduce inequalities and build resilience to crisis and shocks.

In response to COVID-19, UNDP is working with the Ministry of Health and WHO in the communication campaign 'Spreading the word – #LeaveNoOneBehind' to reach out to ethnic minority people and people with disabilities. The campaign promotes COVID-19 prevention messages through animation and other communication means in ethnic minority and sign languages.

In addition, UNDP in collaboration with UNWomen is conducting a rapid assessment of economic impacts of the crisis by surveying about 600 vulnerable households and 500 micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). This will contribute to the COVID-19 Impact Assessment led by the National Centre for Information and Forecast of the Ministry of Planning and Investment.

In the longer term, UNDP will look at innovative ways to support Việt Nam to better prevent and manage such crises and ensure the country makes full use of the lessons learned from this crisis to build back better. — VNS