On 20 May, Prof. Ta Thanh Van, Chairman of the University Council of Hanoi Medical University (HMU), stated that the university's staff and students will provide comprehensive professional support to Bac Ninh following a reconnaissance trip conducted by a university delegation yesterday.
Working with the Bac Ninh Department of Health, Prof. Van noted that the province currently lacks personnel with genuine expertise in contact tracing and epidemiological investigation, while testing capacity also remains limited. Therefore, Hanoi Medical University proposed taking charge of a specific locality to execute these tasks, while also assuming responsibility for training local staff in standardized procedures for sample collection, quarantine, and hygiene.
Hanoi Medical University students departing for Bac Ninh on the morning of 20 May. Photo: Ngoc Thanh.
Bac Ninh province has agreed to assign Hanoi Medical University to oversee Yen Phong—a district comprising 13 communes and one township with a population of approximately 200,000, which has been under social distancing in accordance with Directive 16 since 14:00 on 19 May. Hanoi Medical University will assume full professional responsibility in the coming days. Any supporting unit arriving in the district must adhere strictly to the standards set by Hanoi Medical University.
Alongside direct participation, the university's staff have brought training materials, instructions, and guidelines. District leaders will be responsible for implementation in accordance with professional requirements to prevent disparate practices among arriving support teams.
Following this agreement, 30 final-year students from the School of Preventive Medicine and Public Health arrived in Yen Phong today to support contact tracing and epidemiological investigations. More than 10 university staff members specializing in sample collection and training have also arrived to support these operations. The collected samples will then be transported back to Hanoi Medical University within the day for testing, with results returned online to the provincial Center for Disease Control (CDC).
Additionally, Hanoi Medical University has dispatched two faculty members from the Department of Infectious Diseases to Bac Ninh to survey the field hospital and formulate a plan for delivering online training to healthcare staff and personnel, as Bac Ninh is currently facing a severe shortage of specialists in infectious diseases with experience in COVID-19 treatment.
"We have conducted a thorough reconnaissance to ensure that the deployment of our staff and students is precise, adequate, and responsive to local needs, thereby contributing to effective COVID-19 prevention and control. The staff deployed to Bac Ninh possess exceptionally high professional qualifications, and our final-year students have all undergone rigorous training with deep expertise in this field," said Prof. Van.
The students traveling to Bac Ninh are all in their final year and voluntarily participating in epidemic prevention and control. Photo: Ngoc Thanh.
Explaining why Hanoi Medical University deployed support to localities somewhat later than certain other institutions, Prof. Van stated that the university was assigned by the Ministry of Health to oversee central agencies. For instance, when a suspected infection case was detected at the Ministry of Transport, the university had to dispatch a team to collect samples overnight. Therefore, the university had to carefully calculate and formulate appropriate resource allocation plans.
Currently, in addition to supporting central agencies and Bac Ninh province, Hanoi Medical University is also collaborating on the research project titled "Research on establishing a database of SARS-CoV-2 gene mutations in Vietnam".
As of noon on 20 May, Bac Ninh had recorded 367 community-acquired COVID-19 cases. Three district-level administrative units currently under social distancing according to Directive 16 are Thuan Thanh, Bac Ninh City, and Yen Phong. Luong Tai, Tien Du, Que Vo districts, and Tu Son town are implementing social distancing measures under Directive 15. Within these districts, various industrial parks also contain multiple localized lockdown zones.
Prior to Hanoi Medical University, faculty members and students from Hai Duong University of Medical Technology and the Vietnam Military Medical University had already departed to support Bac Giang—the locality with the highest number of COVID-19 cases nationwide at 644.
Source: Vnexpress | https://vnexpress.net/thay-tro-dai-hoc-y-ha-noi-chi-vien-bac-ninh-chong-dich-4281273.html