Vietnam introduces tests for detecting fetus abnormalities
Vietnam’s Committee for Population, Family and Children (CPFC) and Ministry of Health have launched a project for early identification of abnormalities in fetuses.
The CPFC said under the checks would start when the fetus is two months old, adding the diagnosis was 99 percent accurate.
The Hanoi-based National Obstetrics Hospital and Ho Chi Minh City’s Tu Du Obstetrics Hospital would be the first to adopt the program this month.
It would be introduced in most provincial clinics and family planning centers by 2008.
The project would last until 2010.
The CPFC’s deputy head of the Legal Department, Ha Dinh Bon, said people caught trying to select the sex of their baby – with do-it-yourself literature on gender selection or fortune telling – would be fined VND0.5-7 million (US$31-435).
Offending doctors and other medical staff would be suspended for one to three months, he warned.
