It is the main goal of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) that was signed in Hanoi on September 9 between the Medical Examination and Treatment Management Department under the Vietnamese Ministry of Health (MoH) and the Antimicrobial Resistance Research Centre under Japan’s National Institute of Infectious Diseases (NIID).
According to Assoc. Prof., Dr. Luong Ngoc Khue, head of the MoH’s department, Vietnam is the first country in the Western Pacific region that developed and approved a national action plan on antimicrobial resistance, in 2013. Currently, Vietnam is developing an antibiotic resistance surveillance network and a national database of antimicrobial resistance surveillance.
The NIID’s centre has developed JANIS software, which helps analyse comprehensive data from bacterial culture and antibiotic susceptibility testing, allowing the automatic generation of national antibiotic resistance reports and feedbacks for each hospital participating in antibiotic resistance surveillance. The software is built on a secure Microsoft Azure cloud computing platform, allowing each country to master and secure its database.
Under the MoU, the MoH’s department will coordinate with the NIID’s centre to develop the antimicrobial resistance monitoring system in Vietnam with the goal of building a sustainable monitoring structure through the development of a software module and a collaborative framework, towards creating a national report on antibiotic resistance and providing feedback for bacterial infection control in Vietnam.
Motoyuki Sugai, head of the NIID’s centre, said that specific targets in the cooperation include identifying Vietnamese hospitals to participate in the programme, developing a software module to handle Vietnamese data, providing hospitals with instructions on the use of information technology systems, establishing a national report on antibiotic resistance in Vietnam and feedbacks on antibiotic resistance for participating hospitals in the monitoring system, and developing a sustainable cooperation framework and administration system in Vietnam.
Khue emphasised that the cooperation with the Japanese centre and other related organisations would assist Vietnam in improving its surveillance system, aiming to establish the national database on antimicrobial resistance and help hospitals improve infection control.
