Hanoi(VNA) - Vietnam and France signed many cooperation agreements in health duringa working visit to France by Vietnamese Health Minister Nguyen Thi Kim Tienfrom June 13-17 at the invitation of French Minister of Solidarities and HealthAgnès Buzyn.

The visit aimed to concretise important agreements reached between the twocountries during the official visit to France by General Secretary of theCommunist Party of Vietnam Nguyen Phu Trong in March 2018, which are hoped to turnhealth cooperation into a key pillar of the Strategic Partnership between thetwo nations.

The visit took place in the context that the two sides are celebrating the 25years of signing the Government agreement on health cooperation and the45th anniversary of diplomatic ties.

During their talks on June 14, the two ministers applauded fruitful cooperationin health between the two countries over the last 25 years, especially France’shelp in training over 3,000 Vietnamese doctors in France and 1,500 postgraduatedoctors in Vietnam.

Preventivemedicine and public health are also the outstanding cooperation fields betweenthe two sides with exchange programmes of Vietnam’s Pasteur institutes andthose of France in preventing infectious diseases such as SARS, H5N1, H1N1, measles,dengue and hand-foot and mouth disease.

The officials discussed prospectsfor bilateral health cooperation in the coming time.

They also focused on experience sharing in the field as Vietnam is looking to betterthe quality of health examination and treatment and reform the hospital system,while France is also enhancing management of public expenditure in healthsector, improving medical benefits for low-income people.

On the occasion, the ministers signed a letter of intent on cooperation, statingthat two sides agree to strengthen their bond in training medical staff forVietnam, preventing infectious diseases, public health and preventive medicine,and building policies and legal frameworks for transfusion and transplantactivities.

Minister Tien attended theFrance-Vietnam health workshop in Sorbonne and granted insignias“For the Health of the People” to 30 French medical experts for theircontributions to Vietnam’s health sector.

The Vietnamese delegation also worked with representativesfrom the French Medical Council, and visited French National Blood Service (EFS), Pasteur Paris Institute, Pitie-Salpetriere.

The Vietnamese official witnessedthe signing of the letter of intent on cooperation between Vietnam’s National Instituteof Hematology and Blood Transfusion and French National Blood Service (EFS), and the cooperationagreement between Hanoi Medical University andParis 13 University on training, research and exchange of students.-VNA