The Drug Administration of Vietnam (DAV) under the Ministry of Health has requested local health departments to ensure medicine supply during the upcoming Lunar New Year (Tet holiday).
The medicine supply must not only meet the needs of Covid-19 patients, but also those suffering from common winter and spring diseases, including dengue fever, influenza A, measles, rubella, diarrhea caused by rotavirus, respiratory and digestive diseases.
Medicines are offered to Covid-19 patients treated at home in Hoang Mai District, Hanoi. Photo: Ngoc Huy |
The DAV also required municipal and provincial health departments, drug producers and importers, and relevant units to guarantee medicine quality and reasonable prices and strive to prevent price hikes.
Besides, hospitals and disease control centers are tasked with building their own plans to stock up medicines and ensure their sufficient supply in line with the health ministry’s guidance, amidst the serious evolution of the Covid-19 pandemic, with the increase in the number of cases infected with the new variant Omicron.
Municipal and provincial health departments must ask their inspectors to work closely with relevant units to enhance supervision over the manufacturing, trade, export-import to detect fake and drugs with low-quality and drugs that are not allowed to circulate in the market. Inspectors are required to apply strict punishments to offenders.
Pharmaceutical manufacturers, importers, traders and drug stores are requested to enhance supply sources of medicines and build plans to meet people’s demand for medical examination and treatment.
Moreover, the DAV urged drug stores to remain open and health departments of localities to assign officials on duty around the clock during the Tet holiday to closely follow the situation and ensure medicine supply.
The functional agencies should submit their medicine plan to the DAV before January 20 to enhance coordination.
Truc Bach Ward in Hanoi’s downtown district of Ba Dinh has just launched an online medical station, making it the first of its kind in the capital city, to support Covid-19 patients. According to Nguyen Dan Huy, chairman of the Truc Bach Ward People's Committee, the online medical station uses the Facebook social network to transmit medical information related to the pandemic prevention to locals, guiding them on physical and mental exercises and providing instructions on patient care as well as Covid-19 prevention measures. "The official address of the Facebook fanpage is Online Medical Station - Truc Bach Ward, with the hotline of 039.885.6892. This fanpage is also connected to Zalo social network accounts of the People's Committee of the ward and its residential groups," Huy said. He added that members of the online medical station include staff of the ward and its health station, and volunteer doctors and nurses. "This medical station is expected to contribute to easing pressure with the ward health station in the increasingly serious evolution of the Covid-19 pandemic in the city," Huy stressed |
