Meet Health Workers Fighting HIV, TB and Malaria in Viet Nam

By The Global Fund

May 8^th, 2023

Across Viet Nam, health workers at every level of care – from national laboratories to village health centers – are overcoming obstacles to beat back HIV, tuberculosis (TB) and malaria.

With the support of Global Fund investments, the country has made considerable progress in fighting the three diseases. Health workers are on the forefront of these efforts.

Meet three health heroes from Viet Nam who are bringing prevention, testing and treatment services to the people who need them most.

Dr. Khiếu Thị Thúy Ngọc, Deputy Laboratory Manager, National Lung Hospital, Hanoi, Viet Nam

“After COVID-19 a lot of laboratory staff working in the tuberculosis hospital left their jobs – they were afraid of COVID-19 and TB. Now we have new staff that need training, experience and certification.”

Meet Health Workers Fighting HIV, TB and Malaria in Viet Nam

Viet Nam is one of 30 countries with the highest TB burden in the world. Dr. Khiếu Thị Thúy Ngọc is part of a generational fight against the disease. Following in the footsteps of her mother, a doctor who spent 30 years working in Viet Nam’s National Lung Hospital, Dr. Khiếu has spent her two decades-long career testing and treating TB.

Despite decades of advancement, Dr. Khiếu witnessed the impact of COVID-19 on the fight against TB first-hand.

Prior to the global pandemic, TB detection was on a steady rise in Viet Nam with more patients being tested and treated each year. But the pandemic made case detection more difficult, with fewer people seeking care for their symptoms. In addition, thousands of health workers left the public sector, leaving newer and younger health workers in need of additional training and support.

Dr. Khiếu is on the frontlines of Viet Nam’s efforts to build back even better.

In addition to facilitating testing at the National Tuberculosis Reference Laboratory, she travels across the country training new technicians and laboratory staff on TB testing, procurement planning, and certification of the use of GeneXpert machines, which can rapidly diagnose the disease. In April 2023, she certified over 115 new technicians in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.

Cao Văn Minh, HIV Program Officer, G-Link Community Clinic, Nghe An Province, Viet Nam

“I am part of this community and I want to help improve their lives. I want to use my experience to bring people to the clinic.”

Cao Văn Minh, better known as Anh, has been part of the G-Link Community Clinic since it opened in 2019. He wasn’t just one of the first Program Officers for HIV, he was also the third client to receive HIV testing.

Staff at the clinic often describe G-Link as the province’s first “community-friendly clinic” with a focus on community engagement and mobile testing services that reach key populations, especially people who identify as LGBTQI+ and men who have sex with men.

At a recent mobile event on the patio of the Gold Coffee Cafe in Vinh City, over 50 young people drank frozen sugary coffees, listened to music, played digital games and took photobooth selfies. Anh led the games and handed out prizes to the crowd, while also directing participants to the rows of health workers, counselors and peer educators on-site and ready to connect each client to HIV testing, health information and services. Each young person left the coffee shop knowing their HIV status, and many left with their first month of pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP – medicine that can reduce a person’s likelihood of getting HIV by up to 99%.

For Anh, being community-friendly means meeting people where they are and bringing lifesaving information and services to the people who need them most.

The community-friendly approach is clearly working, with over 70% of clients learning about the clinic from their peers or through mobile testing activities, such as the one at the Gold Coffee Cafe. These events serve as a “one-stop shop” for HIV testing, counseling, PrEP enrollment, and clinic appointments for additional health services.

Since its establishment, G-Link has conducted thousands of HIV tests and connected over 2,100 people to PrEP.

Truỏng Thị Tâm, Volunteer Health Worker, Commune Health Center, Quy Chau District, Viet Nam

“I do it with my heart and my passion. I want to help my village. As a village health worker, I can take care of my family and my community. I’ll do it until I can’t anymore.”

The rural district of Quy Chau in northern-central Viet Nam has not had a single case of malaria since 2016. But that doesn’t mean the fight against malaria is over. Village health workers like Truỏng Thị Tâm remain vigilant to protect their communities and vulnerable migrant and mobile workers.

Of the approximately 7,000 residents of Quy Chau, over 500 are migrant and mobile workers who travel to Africa, neighboring countries or nearby rural areas with thick forests and favorable conditions for mosquitoes. Their transitory and unpredictable work, distance from health services, and lack of information about malaria can make them more susceptible to infection. But village health volunteers take special efforts to keep migrant and mobile workers safe.

Tâm is one of 10 village health workers in Quy Chau and she is deeply connected to her neighbors, often traveling by motorbike across her large village to reach nearly 180 rural homes. Before migrant or mobile workers leave their villages, Tâm ensures the workers have long-lasting insecticidal nets specially designed for use with hammocks. When Tâm learns from local village councils and community organizations that migrant and mobile workers are returning, she visits the workers’ homes to conduct rapid screenings for malaria.

Across Viet Nam, cases of malaria have decreased by 89% since 2016. A cornerstone of that success is the mobilization and integration of village health workers like Tâm.

The Global Fund has three core grants currently active in Viet Nam, worth up to a combined US$120 million. Our investments support Viet Nam’s strategies to continue to reduce new cases and deaths for HIV and tuberculosis (TB) and limit the ongoing threat of drug-resistant TB.

Footnotes

Reporting by Jacki Evans. Photos by Quinn Ryan Mattingly. With many thanks to the Ministry of Health in Viet Nam, the National Lung Hospital in Hanoi, the CDC Nghe An, and the G-Link Community Clinic Nghe An.