The delegation of National Institute of Infectious Diseases, Japan visited and strengthened the cooperation with the National Institute for Control of Vaccine and Biologicals.

On July 18th, the delegation of National Institute for Control of Vaccines and Biologicals (NIID), Japan led by Prof. Ichirro Kurane – Director General of NIID visited to the National Institute for Control of Vaccine and Biologicals (NICVB)

To welcome NIID’s delegation to arrive in Vietnam, on behalf of Vietnamese Ministry of Health (MOH), PhD. Truong Quoc Cuong – Deputy Minister of Health – was in charge of presiding over the meeting with the participation of representatives from various Departments of MOH; domestic vaccine manufacturers such as IVAC and POLYVAC; international organizations: Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA), World Health Organization (WHO); MD. Doan Huu Thien – General Director of NICVB along with numerous principal staffs.

In the opening speech of meeting, PhD. Truong Quoc Cuong – Deputy Minister of Health – spent time expressing his great respect for the valuable assistance and close collaboration from WHO and JICA, appreciating the recent support of NIID to the field of vaccine under Vietnamese Ministry of Health in general and towards NICVB in particular.

Moreover, PhD. Cuong hoped that NIID (under Japanese Ministry of Health) would further strengthen the cooperation in the medical field with Vietnam and NICVB. He suggested that NICVB and NIID play the role of focal units in connecting with the vaccine manufacturing facilities and quality management authorities from both countries, to promote their support with the aim of advancing the capacity for controlling the quality of vaccine.

Responding to PhD. Cuong’s speech, Prof. Ichirro Kurane – Director General of NIID also expressed his pleasure as NIID’s delegation was having such good occasion to visit NICVB, and desired to strengthen the medical cooperation with Vietnam and NICVB in the future.

MD. Doan Huu Thien – General Director of NICVB gave a short summary about the cooperation in the past time: since the MoU between NICVB and NIID was signed in January 2016, NICVB had received a lot of support in professional training and technical assistance from NIID… These made a significant contribution to advance the capacity of NICVB’s technical staffs, and contribute to assure the reliability of control results of vaccines and biological which are circulated throughout Vietnam. So far, there have been 11 researchers of NICVB being assigned to work abroad at NIID, Japan.

On this occasion, NICVB and two domestic manufacturers IVAC, POLYVAC spent time discussing with NIID’s delegation about their proposals of technical support from NIID to help Vietnamese ministry of Health implement effectively the projects on production of national reference standards as well as combined vaccines (multi-antigen).

During the meeting, two representatives from WHO Office in Vietnam - Dr. Takeuchi Momoe, Team leader of healthcare system development and Dr. Iijima Makiko, Technical Officer in charge of Expanded Programme of Immunization (EPI) - pledged to continue supporting Vietnamese health system, particularly NICVB so that NICVB could achieve the capacity for quality control of vaccines on par with NCLs of other countries in the region.

Some images of the meeting