Citation

Khieu T, Quynh T, Ngoc LTT. Inj. Prev. 2010; 16(Suppl 1): A175.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2010, BMJ Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1136/ip.2010.029215.625

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Vietnam is coping with an alarming increase of injury morbidity and mortality. Injury data is an indispensable component for developing and implementing prevention policies and programs. Injury information in the health sector is obtained through a regular system. This surveillance system has been conducted since 2003 aimed to examine injury causes in community quarterly, 6-monthly, 9-monthly and annually. At grass root level, injury cases are recorded by volunteers and then gathered at communal health station. Next, a report on injury situation of the commune is sent to district preventive health centre. At this level, statistics is synthesised and submitted to the provincial preventive medicine centre. At last, Ministry of Health is responsible for collecting reports from 64 provinces nationwide. Statistics indicates that in the first half of 2009, there were 497 611 injury cases. Among that, the number of deaths was 3492 which accounted for 0.7% of total of injuries and dropped 0.3% in compare with 2008. The morbidity and mortality in age group of 20-60 were highest with 62.9% and 70.8%, respectively. Road traffic accidents were the predominant cause of injuries with 39% of total cases. The surveillance system provides a great amount of valuable data for injury interventions conducting and safe community developing. Now 100% provinces implement the system, whereas there were a negligible number of provinces done it in 2003. However, there are still some gaps in the system such as inadequate and incorrect information, lack of staff and equipments.