Attending the forum, Health Minister Nguyen Thi Kim Tien thanked the international community for its effective contributions to the protection and improvement of  Vietnamese people’s physical wellbeing.

The international aid has enabled Vietnamese health workers to improve their professional skills while helping upgrade medical facilities with advanced equipment. Health programmes have also been expanded nationwide thanks to the extensive aid and the health sector's efforts, she said.

However, Viet Nam faced great challenges in dealing with developments of communicable diseases, she admitted, saying that low expenditure on healthcare, limited coverage of health insurance among the lowly paid and the lack of skilled healthcare workers and medical facilities at grassroots level were also holding the sector back.

Tien called on the international community to focus support on four key areas. These were health-related MDGs, control of emerging and re-emerging communicable diseases, development of human resources and training for high-technology transfer.