The Ministry of Health has launched a Month of Preventing Mother-to-Child Transmission of HIV, calling on pregnant women to take HIV tests for their babies’ health.

Vietnam has joined India and China in a health programme for pregnant mothers (HESVIC), which was launched at a workshop in Hanoi on April 19.

Poor women in southern provinces will receive free gynecological check-ups and treatment for cancer under a new programme for prevention and control of cancer in women.

HANG KIA, Hoa Binh Province, Viet Nam – When Kha Y Khua gave birth to her first child 13 years ago, she broke with tradition and gave birth at the local health station. Her people, the H’Mong, live mostly in mountainous, hard-to-reach areas, and are known for their close family ties and strong cultural traditions and beliefs. In H’mong cosmology, a life-soul can be snatched by evil spirits and separated from its body. Because newborn babies are so small and new to life on earth, they are especially vulnerable.

The Vietnam National Institute of Ophthalmology (VNIO) has provided free eye checks-up and medicine to 150 patients, mostly women, in response to the World Sight Day (WSD) 2009’s theme of gender equality in eye care.