(VOVworld) - The Health Minister has urged for increasing health communications, saying foot and mouth disease, H5N1 influenza and environmental sanitation should be high on the agenda.

Everyone is part of communication plan. Photo: P. Lieu

Addressing a conference on health communications in 2012 on Wednesday in Hanoi, Minister Nguyen Thi Kim Tien also called for more efforts to ease hospital overload and reduce medical service fees. She emphasized the need to renew the financial mechanism in order to improve the quality of public health care. “Communications on health should be given first priority. It is necessary to work out a plan on a communication network on health care and include health communications in health care projects and activities”, said Minister Tien.

In another development, the National Committee for AIDS, Drugs and Prostitution Prevention on Wednesday reviewed its activities last year and worked out tasks for this year. By late December 2011, nearly 198,000 people were reported to be infected with HIV and more than 14,000 HIV cases were detected last year alone. The rate of HIV infected women at the age of between 30 and 39 is on the rise. Drug use and prostitution are the main cause of the newly infected cases. Deputy Minister of Health, Nguyen Thanh Long talked about the future tasks: “Party committees at all levels should play a leading role in the fight against AIDS, drug use and prostitution. We will continue to work on and complete the 2020 national strategy on AIDS treatment and prevention.”