Project News

The project for implementing Maternal and Child Health Handbook (MCH handbook) for Scaling Up Nationwide received a lot of comments on the contents of the MCH handbook from the experts of the Ministry of Health (MOH) and some national institutes at the working group meeting on 11 May, 2011. Based on those comments, Dr. Dinh Thi Phuong Hoa, a Project Advisor, had revised into the 2nd draft of MCH handbook.

At the end of May 2011, the 2nd draft of MCH handbook was sent to the members of the working group such as MOH, national institutes and JICA MCH Handbook Project office. Moreover, in order to get comment from different wide viewpoint, it was sent to the Departments of Health and Reproductive Health Care Centers in the project piloted four provinces (Dien Bien, Hoa Binh, Thanh Hoa and An Giang), three international organizations (World Health Organization, United Nations Children's Fund, and United Nations Fund for Population Activities) and six Non-Government-Organizations. We had received supportive comments from those organizations, and it seemed concerned people are interested in and have high expectations of the MCH handbook.

The Maternal and Child Health Department (MCH Dept.) of MOH and JICA project team had jointly reviewed the comments, and made a plan how to revise to 3rd draft.

At the beginning of July, we will have the final meeting to revise the 3rd draft of MCH handbook with experts from the related organizations. We will finalize MCH handbook and complete printing by the middle of July. From September, the training course will be conducted for health providers at 4 targeted provinces. Then, the MCH handbook will be handed to pregnancy women and mothers who have child under 1 year old and start using.

Four months have been passed since the project started. Here in Hanoi - Vietnam, it is getting hot and humid since May, the temperature reaches over 30 degree Celsius during most of the day. We can see a lot of kind of blight color flowers. We might say that Lotus is the one of the typical flowers in Vietnam. Lotus budded a lot and started blooming very beautifully around West Lake in Hanoi.