The administration board of the Ho Chi Minh City University of Medicine and Pharmacy has recently prohibited its staff and students from drinking alcoholic beverages before and during working time as well as at workplaces.

The prohibition is part of the medical school’s campaign to prevent the harm of alcohol abuse to its employees.

The campaign was mounted after the Hanoi-based Health Strategy and Policy Institute released statistics, showing that Vietnam ranks first in Southeast Asia in terms of beer and wine consumption growth though its GDP just stands at number eight in the region.

Besides, the average consumption of beer and wine in the world has not increased in the last ten years, at around 6.2 liters (using wine as the unit) per capita per annum.

Meanwhile, each Vietnamese person drank an average of 3.8 liters of wine a year in the 2003-05 period, and 6.6 liters in 2010.

According to the campaign, staff members of the school are asked to promise not to drink alcoholic beverages before and during working time, at workplaces, as well as during their two meals per day on campus.

The school said the campaign has been made a part of its regulation and penalties have also been specified.

Besides, this ban is intended to bar the school’s employees from drinking before and during driving, and to encourage them to keep other people, especially those under 18 and women who are pregnant or breastfeeding, informed of the harm of beer and wine.

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