The Vietnam Red Cross Society, a key regional player in the battle against pandemic influenza and an important partner to other National Societies, is stepping up its response to the H1N1 influenza pandemic, becoming the latest country to join the Humanitarian Pandemic Preparedness (H2P) programme.
The year-long project was presented to national authorities, NGOs, other civil society organizations and Red Cross staff at a two-day "start-up" meeting in Hanoi at the end of last week.
"Every country is at a high risk of the pandemic which may break out anywhere and is not limited by any border," said Doan Van Thai, vice-president and secretary general of the Vietnam Red Cross Society (VNRC).
The consequences of an influenza pandemic, he added, could be "extremely severe, concerning not only health but also socio-economic issues, culture and public health, and community and sustainable development."
"The Vietnam Red Cross, as an auxiliary to the government, needs to better promote its key role in mobilizing other civil society organizations in the community to participate in awareness raising."
Second wave?
The IFRC is now providing financial and technical support to nearly 70 National Societies through the H2P programme. Programme activity and support have been accelerated in recent months in response to the ongoing risk of an even more severe second wave of the pandemic.
"Given the potential magnitude of the threat, we took a calculated risk in developing this response strategy," says Rob Kaufman, manager of the IFRC's avian and human influenza unit in Geneva.
"It was based on the need for our member societies to protect the world's vulnerable communities, where the most reliable and trusted assistance often comes from the Red Cross and Red Crescent.
"We're using our unique combination of access to governments and our grass-roots network to ensure the tools the IFRC has developed are a benefit for our members and the communities we serve."
Dominant strain
The new H1N1 influenza virus "rapidly established itself" after the outbreak in Mexico earlier this year and is now the dominant strain in most parts of the world, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) - it will "persist in the coming months as the virus continues to move through susceptible populations".
The total number of cases of H1N1 infection in Vietnam itself is now put at more than 6,800, according to the Vietnamese health ministry.
Seven people had died of the disease as of mid-September, more than 4,600 have been discharged from hospital, and the rest are currently being treated in isolation.
With Egypt and China, meanwhile, Vietnam is one of only three countries this year listed by the WHO as having outbreaks of human H5N1, "bird flu", recording four cases - all fatal. (After Indonesia, Vietnam was the second worst-affected country in the world in terms of human losses from H5N1.)
"Rapid, widespread and complex"
The continued circulation of the avian influenza virus may increase the risk of various flu strains "mixing" to create a new, more deadly and easily transmissible human-flu virus, experts say.
Immediately before last week's national H2P event, the VNRC hosted a three-day regional conference on pandemic preparedness and response that brought together governments, National Societies, NGOs and UN agencies, as well as H2P partners and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) - one of two major H2P donors.
Specialists attended from Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Laos, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.
The conference, also in Hanoi, took place amid the "rapid, widespread and complex development of the H1N1 influenza pandemic," VNRC president Tran Ngoc Tang told delegates.
"To strengthen cross-border cooperation in disease control," he added, the VNRC "cooperated with the Chinese, Lao and Cambodian Red Cross to organize information and education campaigns [to help people] protect their families from dangerous epidemics in border areas."
In response to H1N1 and the risk that the pandemic may become more severe, Kaufman adds, the International Federation is now working with partner agencies "to emphasize immediate response activities" in all its influenza projects.
"But these response projects have the same goal as their long-term predecessor," he says. "Community readiness to mitigate the impact of a pandemic on health, food security and livelihoods."
Best defence
With the WHO advising, especially, countries in the northern hemisphere, where winter approaches, to prepare for a possible second wave of flu pandemic, the IFRC earlier this month also launched a worldwide communications effort to bolster community resilience.
The campaign, being shared with all 186 Red Cross and Red Crescent societies and called Your best defence is you, focuses on five personal steps that everyone should take: "wash your hands, cover your mouth, keep your distance, separate your sick, and safely dispose of waste".
"We're concerned about developing countries that do not have the same level of medical and monitoring facilities," said Dr. Tammam Aloudat, a senior Federation health specialist.
"Vaccines and antivirals may be available in some cases, but the best defence everyone has against H1N1 is basic precautions."
Additional reporting by Alex Wynter
[ Any views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not of Reuters. ]
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