Many citizens across Viet Nam vividly recall January 23, 2020. On this day, five years ago, millions awoke to the news that a virulent infectious disease first reported in China the previous month had reached their country.
The Vietnamese government promptly implemented stringent measures to curb the spread of what would soon be known globally as COVID-19. In the following months, governments worldwide adopted similar measures, including travel restrictions, school closures, mandatory mask wearing, and quarantines.
Despite these efforts, however, many countries’ health facilities and human resources would be overwhelmed, revealing the acute vulnerability of public healthcare systems during a significant health emergency.
This experience raises a simple question: what can be done to ensure that countries, like Viet Nam, are better prepared in the future? This is an important question, as factors such as climate change and increased human interaction with nature suggest that epidemics and health emergencies may become more frequent in the coming years.
The arrival of COVID-19 in 2020 exposed significant limitations in Viet Nam’s emergency-response capacity. At a national level, the country was unable to fully deliver the necessary health services. Similar gaps became apparent in its capacity for cross-sectoral coordination and collaboration, particularly in planning, communication and community engagement. Additionally, its ability to include vulnerable groups, essential for a comprehensive whole-of-society response, was also inadequate.
In response, the World Bank-supported project “Strengthening preparedness and response to COVID-19 at the grassroots level in Viet Nam” was developed. Launched in partnership with the Institute for Social Development Studies in August 2021, the project addresses a frequently overlooked aspect of health emergency preparedness: the response capacity of local communities.
A critical component of this capacity is having highly skilled healthcare workers. This grassroots-focused project, funded primarily through a $2.75-million grant from the Japan Social Development Fund, provided tailored training to 147 provincial and district trainers and 388 trainees. This included 27 emergency simulation exercises in the project’s target areas. Furthermore, an additional 876 commune health staff and 1,412 local health staff received training on infection prevention and control, maintaining essential health services during the pandemic, and supporting treatment and referrals of infected patients.
The results have been substantial. Notably, the number of health staff reporting good knowledge of epidemic response has almost tripled, increasing from 28 percent at the start of the project to 75.6 percent today.
This training is not only oriented towards future preparedness; it is also enhancing current healthcare delivery. As noted by a trainee from Ninh An commune: “Thanks to this course, I was able to better process professional knowledge. As a result, I can now apply it more effectively in my daily work, especially in preventing and fighting infectious diseases for local people.”
The project also emphasized the important role that communities and citizens play in keeping themselves and their neighbors safe. To that end, the program offered relevant training to district leaders, local authorities, social organizations and school children. To date, 27,000 people have been trained to respond to emergencies, including 5,756 from vulnerable groups in the project’s initial 27 target communes in Vinh Phuc, Khanh Hoa and Long An provinces. These include the elderly, drug users, female sex workers, poor informal migrant workers, individuals living with HIV/AIDS, and representatives of the Khmer ethnic minority.
The project’s unique approach has allowed it to scale-up outreach, including vulnerable communities. Working through 10 networks of 100 volunteers from these communities, the project, provided COVID-19 training, and outreach and communication skills, with basic psychological support and advice on tackling gender-based violence.
A final insight from the Viet Nam project relates to social media. Through close partnership with a local social media platform Zalo, 2,500 messages have been widely disseminated, with timely and accurate health information since May 2023. These posts cover tips on disease prevention and control, and have helped to increase public knowledge about pandemic prevention from 37 to 95 percent. Local authorities are now also using Zalo to share information on wider health topics and issues.
Overall, this project demonstrates that engaging local communities and vulnerable population groups at the grassroots level can enhance emergency preparedness and resilience. As counterintuitive as it sounds, to reach scale in emergency preparedness, start small.
Source: blogs.worldbank.org
