FValse - Franco Vietnamese Association for Liver Studies and Education
Viral Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C
Viral hepatitis and liver diseases are among the most important causes of morbidity and early mortality in Vietnam. While the global prevalence of viral hepatitis C is 3%, it is estimated that in Vietnam up to 15% of the population may be contaminated. In the Western world the spread of hepatitis B has been overall controlled, while in Vietnam it remains the leading cause of cirrhosis and liver cancer. The main reasons for this dramatic public health issue are the prolonged unsafe healthcare-related practices such as reusable glass syringes and shared injectables, and uncontrolled blood transfusions that have resulted from 40 years of war and economic embargo.
After a long period of disappointing therapies for viral hepatitis, major breakthroughs in the last few years have radically modified the approach to treatment. Drug agents such as interferons and antivirals are now available to treat and in many cases cure these chronic diseases that otherwise evolve into liver cirrhosis and death. Understanding how and when these extremely expensive therapeutics should be prescribed is a major challenge that will require expert advice and formal training and education of doctors and medical personnel involved in the care of such patients, particularly in a setting where there are no health insurance programs as is the case in Vietnam for the foreseeable future.
We have constituted a large group of expert hepatologists from France and Switzerland who are affiliated with the Franco-Vietnamese Hospital located in Ho Chi Minh City. The FV Hospital is an international standard general hospital which has opened in 2003 in HCM City, staffed with French and Vietnamese doctors. Our group is made of reputed clinicians and teachers in the field of liver diseases with a specific sensitivity for medical issues in developing countries.
Our intention is to establish at FV Hospital a Liver Disease Teaching Center to provide up to date medical training in prevention and screening of hepatitis B and hepatitis C and to foster guidelines for management. When dealing with chronic diseases that require long term follow-up it is essential to provide patient education with information material written in Vietnamese.
For this ambitious educational program to succeed we can count on the professional expertise of a group of committed hepatologists as well as the appropriate facilities of a modern hospital in HCM City catering for a population of several million people in the south of Vietnam. Our purpose is to develop the educational tools.