The U.S. funding to ASEAN countries on COVID-19 aims to prepare laboratories for large-scale testing for COVID-19; prevent and control spread of the virus in communities; enable risk communication; implement public-health emergency plans for border points of entry; activate case-finding and event-based surveillance for influenza-like illnesses; train and equip rapid-responders in investigation and contact-tracing; and update training materials for health workers.
Furthermore, U.S. exchange programs have strengthened the expertise of the Southeast Asian medical professionals leading their countries’ fight against COVID-19. More than 1,400 physicians from ASEAN countries have been visiting scholars at U.S. universities and medical schools.
Another 1,000 Southeast Asian medical and public health professionals are alumni of U.S.-sponsored exchange programs in their fields.
Regionally, the United States through NIH is active in supporting research in ASEAN countries key to countering pandemics, including on therapeutics, vaccines, and medical countermeasures.
Examples include NIH work with ASEAN partners on malaria treatment and prevention, bat coronavirus spillover events, and other research of public health benefit.
The United States, through USAID and the CDC, has regional programs to boost ASEAN country capacity to prepare for outbreaks and build lab diagnostic capabilities. These include CDC improvements to laboratory safety and biosecurity across ASEAN, by certifying high-standard biological safety cabinets; a CDC training course for Mekong countries (Burma, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand) on how to counter emerging influenza threats, held in November 2019; long-standing USAID support through the One Health Workforce – Next Generation project to ASEAN countries, including Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Thailand, to prepare for, prevent, detect, and respond to public health emergencies before they pose an overwhelming pandemic threat. The project aims to transform the health workforce and university public health curricula. Since 2014, over 10,000 students and professionals have been trained in infectious disease topics through the Southeast Asia One Health University Network (SEAOHUN); USAID partnership with the Thailand Ministry of Public Health to build a Regional Public Health Laboratory (RPHL) network, sharing information and resources on emerging infectious diseases across ASEAN since the network’s launch in November 2019.
The U.S. also renders emergency COVID-19 support for individual ASEAN countries to prevent and combat COVID-19.
Particularly, The U.S. has pledged to provide both technical assistance and financial support to Vietnam
The U.S. aid of early $3 million in health assistance will help the Vietnamese government prepare laboratory systems, activate case-finding and event-based surveillance, support technical experts for response and preparedness, risk communication, infection prevention and control, and more.
The CDC provided training to 15 hospitals in conjunction with the WHO, and has helped train for the 63 cities and provinces on COVID-19 surveillance, reporting, and sample collection, and is supporting Vietnam in developing its National Infection Prevention and Control guidelines for COVID-19.
The Vietnamese government has requested support for COVID-19 testing reagents, which is currently being coordinated with DTRA for local sourcing.
Over the past 20 years, the United States has invested more than $706 million in health assistance and more than $1.8 billion in total assistance for Vietnam.
Reported by Quynh Le – Hoang Linh