The U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is planning to send a delegation to Vietnam in March as it hails the Southeast Asian country's effective fight against the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) epidemic, the Vietnamese Embassy in the U.S. said Thursday.

The plan was discussed during a recent meeting between the embassy, the CDC, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in the United States.

The meeting was attended by HHS Asia and the Pacific Office of Global Affairs Director Erika Elvander and CDC Chief Medical Officer Mitch Wolfe on Wednesday.

According to the Vietnamese Embassy in the U.S., the U.S. side gave positive assessments on Vietnam's medical capacity in general and in the prevention and control activities of COVID-19 in particular.

“The U.S. Department of Health said that Vietnam’s leaders from the central to local levels had paid attention to and given timely directions, taking comprehensive, drastic and thorough measures to deal with COVID-19, especially in raising awareness of the people and the community,” the embassy said in an update in Vietnamese on its website.

“In addition, Vietnam has a good network of healthcare facilities and has been widely and thoroughly implementing its vaccination and disease prevention works for a long time.”

Therefore, the U.S. side believes that Vietnam will fight COVID-19 "effectively," the post reads.

The HHS and CDC also highly appreciated the close and effective cooperation of Vietnam in regular information and experience sharing and disease prevention.

At Wednesday’s meeting, ​​HHS and CDC said that scientists in the U.S. are actively researching on the new strain of the coronavirus to understand its nature and mechanism of action and to propose preventive measures and effective containment against the virus.

The U.S. health officials also said that some laboratories in the States have developed vaccines that are expected to be tested in humans in the next two months and can be put in use in 6-12 months.

Regarding the ASEAN-U.S. cooperation, the U.S. side hailed Vietnam, as the ASEAN Chair for 2020, for having responded promptly and had regional cooperation initiatives on COVID-19. 

The HHS is willing to talk with ASEAN through the ASEAN-U.S. dialogue relations and at international organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO) to promote health cooperation activities, especially in preventing and containing COVID-19.

Meanwhile, the CDC plans to send a delegation to Vietnam in March to discuss cooperation and the establishment of a regional CDC Office in Vietnam. 

At the same time, U.S. agencies, including the International Reagent Source Center (IRR), are willing to share with Vietnam the results of COVID-19 researches, exchange experts, and supply trial kits and personal protective equipment for Vietnam to improve the country’s capacity of disease prevention.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!