population with dental assessments and procedures, and ENCAP projects could enhance industry
partnerships between the United States and Vietnam and boost local economies. Success in the PPP
program would facilitate negotiations with neighboring countries, such as Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and
China, to collaborate in areas such as infectious disease detection, reporting, and tracking.
Gaps in Vietnam’s Emergency Response and Preparedness Programs
As of 2013, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC-US) seeks to build capacity within
Vietnam to plan for, respond to, and recover from natural disasters and pandemic outbreaks. Building
capacity creates an environment that fosters Host Nation (HN) institutional development, community
participation, human resources development, and strengthened managerial systems, while the United States
remains a catalyst and supporter. As such, the United States should not build any capacities beyond what
Vietnam can sustain, as the HN must expend a great deal of its own resources as well if true capacity-
building is to occur.
Because of Vietnam’s geographic location, it is a more disaster-prone country in USPACOM’s Southeast
Asia region and is particularly vulnerable to severe typhoons and floods. Between 1980–2010, natural
disasters in Vietnam killed 16,099 people, affected over 73 million people, and caused nearly eight trillion
dollars in damage. As a result, Vietnam has started constructing an emergency preparedness and disaster
response plan, directing its agencies on the procedures to be carried out in response to severe emergencies,
including typhoons, floods, earthquakes, and fires.
Currently, Vietnam’s system continues to be reactive instead of proactive, and its agencies lack the expertise
to handle large disasters on their own. Although the Vietnamese government has been reluctant to ask for
external assistance in support of disaster response, their reliance on external help will continue for some
decades to come. The United States is prepared to assist as it has with other countries under similar
circumstances. During the past years, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has
responded to 63 disasters in 54 countries around the world. Emergencies, such as typhoon, flood, and
infectious disease outbreaks are unpredictable, but virulent disease can be planned for and hopefully
prevented.
The Need for a Pandemic Prevention Program in Vietnam
Almost all of the world’s flu viruses emerge from China and Southeast Asia, and without an early detection
program, endemic diseases can become pandemics. The lack of a PPP that can report and track infectious
diseases of concern in a timely manner is a global health security threat. According to a World Health
Organization (WHO) Report on Infectious Diseases:
As the battle to control known infectious diseases continues, other new threats have emerged.
Diseases once thought to be retreating have made a deadly comeback. Even worse, new killer
diseases have emerged—many of them neither preventable nor treatable. The situation is getting
worse, not better. Over the past two decades over 30 emerging diseases have been identified in
humans for the first time. During the past ten years, outbreaks of old foes such as plague,
diphtheria, yellow fever, dengue, meningitis, influenza and cholera have claimed many lives.
It is more economically feasible to implement measures such as a comprehensive PPP program to prevent
a possible disease outbreak than it is to react to one as an emergency.
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