The chief of the Party Central Committee’s Commission for Internal Affairs, Nguyen Ba Thanh, arrived in the central city of Da Nang on Friday on an ambulance airplane after over four months of treatment for myelodysplastic syndrome in the U.S.

>> Nguyen Ba Thanh suffers myelodysplastic syndrome, was not poisoned: official Amid a warm welcome from thousands of local residents, Thanh, 62, returned to his native city on board the ambulance aircraft 00N183P that landed at Da Nang International Airport at 8:45 pm local time. He was accompanied by his relatives and a team of American doctors and health workers. Thanh was then carried on a stretcher to an ambulance that picked him up at the aircraft stairs and then left the airport for the Da Nang Hospital. As the ambulance reached Nguyen Tri Phuong Street outside the airport, numerous local residents stood on the roadside waving at the car and shouting his name, “Ba Thanh! Ba Thanh!,” while hundreds of people on motorbikes followed the ambulance. Crowds cheered Thanh all the way to the hospital, where he will be further treated under a schedule devised by American doctors and their counterparts while waiting for a bone marrow transplant. Before his return, there was an Internet-spread rumor that his myelodysplastic syndrome had been caused by poisoning, but the Central Commission of Health Care for Senior Officials has refuted the rumor.   Myelodysplastic syndrome is a type of cancer in which the bone marrow does not make enough healthy blood cells and there are abnormal (blast) cells in the blood and/or bone marrow, according to the U.S. National Cancer Institute.

A large number of people are seen gathering in front of the Da Nang Hospital to welcome Nguyen Ba Thanh on January 9, 2015. Photo: Tuoi Tre

When Thanh’s condition was detected in May 2014, he was first treated at Hanoi’s Central Military Hospital 108 before being sent to Singapore for treatment in June and July, said Dr. Tran Huy Dung, deputy head of the commission. In mid-August, Thanh was transferred from Singapore to a private hospital in the U.S., where he underwent three rounds of chemotherapy before entering a recovery period pending a bone marrow transplant, Dr. Dung said. After accompanying Thanh to Vietnam, the team of American doctors and health workers has returned to the U.S., Prof. Pham Gia Khai, chairman of the medical council of the commission, told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper on Friday evening. “Thanh was relatively in full possession of his senses when he arrived in Da Nang. We will conduct a consultation on his condition tomorrow,” Prof. Khai said.   In talking with Tuoi Tre, Secretary of the Da Nang City Party Committee Tran Tho said the consultation would be held between doctors at the Da Nang Hospital and those from a central council of doctors. Depending on the patient, myelodysplastic syndrome can progress either rapidly, within several months, or slowly, over as long as ten years, Bach Quoc Khanh, vice director of the Central Institute of Blood Transfusion and Hematology, had earlier told Tuoi Tre, adding that Thanh unluckily falls into the first category – rapid progression. Thanh was the secretary of the Da Nang City Party Committee from 2003 to late 2012 when he came to Hanoi to take office as the head of the Party Central Committee’s Commission for Internal Affairs.

During the 1996-2003 period, he was the first chairman of the city after Da Nang was separated from the former Quang Nam-Da Nang province.  Thanh is also deputy head of the Central Steering Committee for Anti-Corruption led by Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong. The anti-corruption czar hails from Hoa Vang District, Da Nang.

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