Tasks and powers of the Ministry of Health in preventive medicine in Vietnam

1. Formulate and promulgate within its competence or request competent authorities to promulgate legislative documents, professional regulations, national technical standards and regulations in the following sectors:  Monitoring, prevention and control of infectious diseases, HIV/AIDS, non-communicable diseases, occupational diseases, accidents and injuries; inoculation; biosafety in laboratories; border health quarantine; environmental health and hygiene, occupational sanitation, school hygiene and healthcare; drinking water and tap water quality and hygiene; community nutrition; tobacco; insecticidal and germicidal chemicals and preparations for household and medical use;

2. Promulgate, review and modify lists of infectious diseases in groups and list of infectious diseases subject to mandatory use of vaccines and biological products, and organize the provision or vaccines and biological products to eligible entities as per the law;

3. Take charge and cooperate with relevant ministries to promulgate and amend health standards by occupation, the list of diseases requiring long-term treatment under which the employees are entitled to enjoy sickness benefits and the list of occupational diseases under which the employees are entitled to enjoy occupational disease benefits in Vietnam;

4. Organize the monitoring of infectious diseases, non-communicable diseases, mysterious diseases, factors affecting human health and other public health matters; early detect infectious diseases causing epidemics and organize the declaration of outbreak and successful outbreak control in accordance with the law; take charge and cooperate with relevant authorities to provide accurate and timely information concerning infectious diseases;  

5. Request competent authorities to make decisions or make decisions within its competence on implementation of epidemic and pandemic prevention and control measures; inspect and assist local agencies and governments in implementing epidemic and pandemic prevention and control measures; formulate and organize the implementation of public health emergency response plans;

6. Conduct border health quarantine activities at border checkpoints; provide timely information and reports on dangerous infectious diseases and public health matters worldwide so as to actively take prevention and control measures;

7. Instruct the appraisal of health impact assessment reports of projects on investment and construction of industrial parks, urban areas or concentrated residential areas, or infectious diseases treatment facilities;

8. Manage, instruct and conduct workplace environment monitoring activities; direct the workplace environment monitoring at industrial parks or clusters posing high risks of occupational diseases; evaluate, monitor and manage harmful factors at workplaces; establish workplace environment monitoring database, announce the list of eligible providers of workplace environment monitoring services and the suspended ones as per the law;  

9. Provide instructions within its competence on management of occupational sanitation, health examination for employees, examination for early detection of occupational diseases and monitoring of employees’ health at workplaces; take charge of managing the issuance of professional and training certificates of occupational health, workplace first aid and emergency skills in accordance with the laws;

10. Instruct the provision of primary healthcare services for people;

11. Issue, re-issue and revoke Certificates of biosafety level 3 and level 4 laboratories, excluding laboratories under the management of Ministry of National Defence;

12. Issue, re-issue, supplement, extend, suspend and revoke registration numbers, import licenses, certificates of free sales of insecticidal and germicidal chemicals and preparations for household and medical use; issue receipt notes of applications for declaration of eligibility to conduct testing or experiment on insecticidal and germicidal chemicals and preparations for household and medical use; issue certificates of approval for advertising contents for insecticidal and germicidal chemicals and preparations for household and medical use as per the law;

13. Organize or authorize affiliated authorities to issue, modify or revoke certificates of eligibility to run HIV confirmatory tests and suspend  HIV confirmatory tests of ineligible HIV testing laboratories;

14. Designate certification bodies to assess the conformity of tobacco products; issue, suspend, revoke or re-issue Certificates of Declaration of conformity of tobacco products;

15. Manage and instruct treatment for opioid and tobacco addiction nationwide;    

16. Instruct and inspect the compliance with professional regulations and national technical regulations on preventive medicine nationwide;

17. Instruct, inspect and evaluate the implementation of HIV/AIDS prevention and control action programs nationwide.

View more details at Decree No. 75/2017/NĐ-CP of Vietnam’s Government, effective from June 20, 2017.

- Ngoc Duyen -

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