Events

MINSK, 31 July (BelTA) – The expansion of Minsk-Hanoi cooperation in healthcare was in the spotlight of the meeting between Minsk Mayor Andrei Shorets and a delegation of Hanoi held on 31 July, BelTA has learned.

According to Deputy First Secretary of the Hanoi Committee of Vietnam’s Communist Party Dao Duc Toan, the Vietnamese capital will play host to a medical forum and a business matchmaking session in late November-early December 2017. The events are designed to discuss the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer, post-treatment recovery, the production of medical preparations and therapeutic food, the intensification of cooperation between Belarusian and Vietnamese R&D institutions, manufacturers, and also healthcare and tourism organizations in these fields. “Medicine is a promising avenue of cooperation between our countries. We are interested in cooperation in cancer prevention and treatment, in the first place. Belarus has achieved significant results in this field,” Dao Duc Toan noted.

For his part, Belarusian Deputy Health Minister Vyacheslav Shilo said Belarus is also ready to cooperate in training and retraining of health professionals and providing medical services to Vietnamese citizens. He also offered to discuss the localization of Belarusian pharmaceutical companies in Vietnam and the export of Belarus’ medical equipment to the country.

According to the deputy minister, the organizations affiliated with the Health Ministry provided medical services to 150,000 patients from 126 counties in 2016. The most popular ones were transplant surgery, cardiac surgery, neurosurgery, and cancer treatment. Belarus’ medical education establishments enroll over 6,000 foreigners. “We can train specialists in different fields in the institutes and retrain health professionals at the Belarusian Medical Academy of Postgraduate Education,” Vyacheslav Shilo remarked.

A Belarusian delegation is expected to attend the Hanoi medical forum. Andrei Romanov, Assistant to the Speaker of the House of Representatives of Belarus’ National Assembly, pointed out that members of the House of Representatives plan to pay a visit to Vietnam at the time when the forum will take place. They are set to discuss the intensification of contacts at the regional level and joint projects between scientific organizations, as well as cooperation in healthcare.

The delegation of Hanoi is in Minsk on a visit from 29 July to 1 August. Hanoi is the capital of Vietnam and the second largest city of the country by population. This is Vietnam’s main political, educational, and cultural center, and also the second largest industrial center, trailing only Ho Chi Minh City.