The roundtable, attended by CDC Country Director in Vietnam Eric Dziuban, focused on Vietnam's response plans to disease outbreak risks and public health emergencies in the last five years since the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak to enhance experience exchange, knowledge sharing and cooperation fields and improve the readiness of the Vietnamese health system.

“Health has always been one of priority areas in bilateral cooperation. When there were no effective HIV treatments, Vietnam and the US actively cooperated to support people with health problems. Then, when there was a series of H5N1 cases in 2005 or more recently during the Covid-19 pandemic, Vietnam and the US quickly coordinated to work out timely and effective response plans,” said Director Eric Dziuban.

Looking forward to the 30th anniversary of the establishment of Vietnam - US bilateral relations in 2025, this is an important chance for the two countries to look back on the journey they have traveled and the strong development of the current bilateral relationship, he added. During US President Joe Biden's visit to Vietnam in September 2023, the two countries signed an agreement to upgrade their relationship to a comprehensive strategic partnership, which is a good opportunity to bolster overall cooperation, including health cooperation.

In the joint statement, Vietnamese and US leaders highlighted comprehensive and specific health cooperation, including strengthened cooperation in ensuring health security, detecting and responding to the Covid-19 pandemic and global epidemic risks, completely and firmly controlling the HIV/AIDS epidemic, eliminating tuberculosis by 2030, developing the pharmaceutical industry, and enhancing the compatibility of regulations to better elevate Vietnam's role in regional and international supply chains.

“Currently a lot of work needs to be done to protect public health, like training human resources, building an information data system, increasing testing capacity to diagnose risks early. The US CDC wants to continue in its partnership and cooperation with Vietnam in these fields,” Mr. Eric Dziuban emphasized.

Sharing his personal plans, CDC Country Director in Vietnam Eric Dziuban said, after completing his term, he will return to the CDC headquarters in Atlanta (US) and work at the CDC Global Health Center. In the new position in his homeland, he is confident that he will have the opportunity to further promote cooperation achievements with Vietnamese partners and continue to support the Government and health agencies of Vietnam to strengthen capacity and promote activities for public health protection and care.