Project News

In recent years, a large scale of outbreak of Hand-Foot-Mouth Diseases (HFMD) has taken place, accompanying with a number of severe and death cases, which is recognized as one of serious problems of the public health in Vietnam. From 2011, the Vietnamese government assigned HFMD as one of infectious diseases, the number of their incidence of which has to be formally reported and has been able to pursuit the total numbers of affected children in nationwide of Vietnam. In the season from 2011 to 2012, a large scale of outbreak of HFMD occurred nationwide with epicenter in the southern region and resulted in a number of serious and death cases, especially in infants (approximately 280000 infected cases, 223 death cases). Laboratory system for HFMD is now on the way of preparation in parallel with governmental regulations of surveillance system for HFMD in Vietnam. The second training course of laboratory diagnosis was organized at PIHCMC from 7 to 10 July 2015 as followed in NIHE last year, with 18 participants responsible for laboratory diagnosis not only from 4 regional institutes (NIHE, PI-HCMC, PINT and TIHE), but also from the southern pilot PCPM such as Can Tho, Dong Nai,TienGiang and the northern pilot PCPM, Yen Bai. Lectures included Drs. HienThanh and Nguyen Hoa, NIHE, and Dr. Shimuzu, NIID Japan, who gave a lecture and technical guidance on fundamental facts, biosafety and laboratory techniques related to laboratory diagnosis of HFMD and Enterovirus. Participants from each regional institute presented the surveillance and laboratory protocol currently applied in each institute for laboratory diagnosis in order to share the information with each other. Upon the discussion on difference in the protocol, they picked up the problems and point how to improve for laboratory network and information sharing among 4 regional institutes and pilot PCPMs. Definite comparison and discussion on the protocols among 4 institutes revealed that there exists substantial differences among 4 institutes not only in the protocol employed for laboratory diagnosis of HFMD but also in the current situation of laboratory systems including apparatus. Based on the discussion among participants, we reached to the conclusion that it is important to define the role of RIs, PCPMs and national hospitals for infants in laboratory network of HFMD surveillance in Vietnam because major national hospitals have so far carried out their diagnosis and surveillance independently from survey of laboratory diagnosis in 4 regional institutes. Aiming the establishment of laboratory network in Vietnam, there is necessity of external quality control system to compare the quality and sensitivity of laboratory diagnosis employed in each institute by preparing periodical distributing a panel oftypical causative viruses. The workshop for laboratory diagnosis of HFMD was well recognized by Vietnamese researchers and should be periodically organized in compliance with the demands from NIHE, participants and experts.

Testing of Enteroviruses by Multiplex RT-PCR method

All participants of the training course