The Joint Vietnam-Russia Tropical Science and Technology Research Center attending the first joint African-Russian International Conference on Combating Infectious Diseases

From April 17 to April 19, 2024, Major General Dang Hong Trien, General Director of the Joint Vietnam-Russia Tropical Science and Technology Research Center (VRTC), led a delegation of the Center to participate in the conference at the invitation of the Federal Service for the Oversight of Consumer Protection and Welfare (Rospotrebnadzor) of the Russian Federation.

Delegates attending the conference.

The conference brought together over 170 scientific management experts, epidemiologists, microbiologists, biosecurity specialists, and biosafety specialists from 16 countries, including Russia, various African countries, South America, and Southeast Asia. Throughout the event, delegates engaged in discussions on a range of topics concerning the prevention and treatment of infectious diseases, innovative approaches to enhance biosecurity and biosafety, and shared experiences in combating dangerous pathogens, applying new techniques in epidemiological surveillance, and detecting disease-causing agents specific to each region.

Major General Dang Hong Trien delivering a report at the conference.

In addition to delivering scientific reports at the conference, the delegation also participated in a specialized training course on the utilization of mobile laboratories in combating infectious diseases. Epidemiologists and microbiologists from various countries shared their experiences in operating and utilizing mobile laboratories in infectious disease control, particularly in response to the Ebola and COVID-19 outbreaks in Africa.

Practical training in the mobile laboratory.

On the sidelines of the conference, Ms. Anna Popova, the head of Rospotrebnadzor, held talks with Major General Dang Hong Trien, General Director of VRTC. Both sides exchanged research cooperation results and discussed future steps to further develop collaboration in the fight against infectious disease threats.

Conversations about collaboration between VRTC and Rospotrebnadzor.

Throughout the research collaboration period from 2017 to 2023, VRTC and Rospotrebnadzor jointly organized over 50 missions in Vietnam, conducted studies on more than 400 strains of infectious agents, published over 60 joint scientific papers, and released 2 handbooks on research methods and detection of disease-causing agents in Vietnamese and Russian. Scientific staff from the Center were trained in epidemiological surveillance, diagnostic testing, and biosafety in Russia and Vietnam. The results of the seven years of cooperation have laid a solid foundation for further collaboration between the two organizations in the field of preventing infectious diseases for the upcoming period from 2025 to 2029, within the framework of joint Vietnamese-Russian scientific research cooperation.

Bui Thi Lan Anh (Institute of Tropical Medicine)

Ngoc Nguyen translated