Italy willing to support Vietnam in the treatment of COVID-19

Speaking at a meeting between medical team 118 and Vietnamese Ambassador to Italy Nguyen Thi Bich Hue on September 13, he said the system has actively exchanged and shared a lot of experiences in pandemic prevention, contributing to relief emergency for the hospital system.

Balzanelli expressed his wish to speed up the early signing of a memorandum of understanding on scientific cooperation between the two countries in the medical field. The focus will be on emergency healthcare, training, skills and techniques development and preparation of guidelines for pandemic emergencies.

The Vietnamese ambassador thanked Italian friends for their support, saying Italy's experience was very useful to Vietnam because Italy was also the country that has been heavily affected by the pandemic.

The Government and people of Vietnam have been making great efforts to curb the pandemic, however, it still lacks vaccines, medicines, and equipment in the treatment of COVID-19. Therefore, she said, Vietnam needs the help and sharing of experience in pandemic response from international friends in general and Italy in particular.

A batch of 812,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccine that the Italian Government supports for Vietnam through the COVAX mechanism are scheduled to arrive in Vietnam on September 13, reflecting the special interest of Italian friends in the country, Hue said.

The Vietnamese Ambassador also hoped that the doctors would continue to share experience in pandemic response, and at the same time mobilise regional governments and relevant agencies to support medical equipment and supplies, medicines, and ventilators for Vietnam given the complicated developments of the pandemic.

Sharing experience in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic at 118, Doctor Karen Kieu Nguyen said that the current 5-tier COVID-19 treatment model is very suitable, but it must be carried out synchronously between localities.

She emphasised the need to combine training to improve treatment capacity in hospitals, especially in provinces, industrial zones, hospitals of medical universities, with the controlling the number of patients at hospitals, avoid overcrowding and cross-infection.

She also underlined the application of blood plasma and blood stem cells to support the treatment of COVID-19.

Doctor Karen Kieu Nguyen and a team of doctors from Emergency System 118 are expected to visit Ho Chi Minh City to consult, support and transfer the process of screening, treating and caring for COVID-19 patients as well as blood plasma and stem cell technology transfer in the treatment of COVID-19.