Maintaining Achievements in Disease Prevention and Control, Moving Toward Sustainable Health Programs in Dien Bien

On December 11–12, 2025, the Oversight Committee of the Vietnam Country Coordinating Mechanism (CCM Vietnam) for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria conducted a working visit to Dien Bien Province. The delegation worked with the Provincial Department of Health, the Center for Disease Control (CDC), the Provincial Lung Hospital, and several commune-level health stations. The oversight program covered three areas simultaneously: HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, with the participation of community organizations and project beneficiaries. The purpose of the trip was to comprehensively assess project implementation, disbursement progress, and resource utilization, while analyzing challenges arising from administrative restructuring, modification in financial mechanisms, and growing demands for resource mobilization to ensure the sustainability of local health programs.

Local reports indicated that the Tuberculosis Control Program was still making progress, with the majority of objectives hitting 80–90%. The workforce of the Provincial Lung Hospital remained comparatively stable. Support from the Global Fund remains critical for early diagnosis and treatment of TB. The application of GeneXpert molecular testing has improved diagnostic accuracy, shortened detection time for TB bacteria and rifampicin resistance, and enabled timely initiation of appropriate treatment.

For the Malaria Control Program, in June 2025, Dien Bien received formal certification for meeting the requirements for eliminating malaria. This achievement reflects the effectiveness of vector surveillance, case management, and community-based health communication, despite ongoing risks of imported cases due to population mobility and cross-border interactions.

In the HIV/AIDS program, prevention, care, and treatment activities have been consistently maintained. The province currently manages over 7,000 people living with HIV through specialized software systems; notably 98.5% of those on ARV treatment have viral loads below the detectable threshold. Key interventions such as prevention of mother-to-child transmission, multi-day Methadone treatment, and HIV/HCV co-infection treatment continue to be implemented effectively.

In addition to these successes, the oversight team identified a number of  challenges that need to be addressed to ensure program sustainability.

For the Tuberculosis Program, active case finding (ACF) in the community has not been standardized, and communication efforts have not fully utilized ethnic minority languages. The team recommends strengthening epidemiological data analysis by ethnic group, verifying the trend of “younger age” TB cases using long-term data, and optimizing GeneXpert use to shorten diagnostic time and accelerate treatment initiation.

In the Malaria Program, the 2025 disbursement rate remains low (around 17%), mainly due to cost norms not aligned with mountainous realities; some microscopy sites have deteriorated, and diagnostic techniques have not been updated promptly. The team advises retraining diagnostic techniques, supplying rapid diagnostic kits, adjusting travel cost norms to local conditions, and developing contingency plans for imported cases—from early detection to containment and vector control.

For the HIV/AIDS Program, donor-driven budget adjustments have affected the ability to expand testing, carry out harm-reduction interventions, and retain community outreach personnel for high-risk populations. The team suggested strengthening outreach and peer networks, enhancing local funding mobilization for training and maintaining core activities, scaling up community-based HIV testing and expanding self-testing for key populations. Standardizing reporting systems and using real-time data to adjust targets and intervention plans are identified as critical factors for the next phase.

In the context of implementing a two-tier governance model, the oversight team also emphasized that the Provincial Department of Health should provide clear guidance and plan to ensure continuity of technical oversight, particularly since commune health stations come under the management of local People’s Committees.

Concluding the visit, the oversight team highlighted the crucial role of primary health care in disease identification, management, and treatment, and urged local authorities to continue addressing disbursement bottlenecks. By utilizing  resources are used effectively and strategically, Dien Bien will establish a strong foundation to maintain its achievements, improve health care quality, and ensure the long-term viability of disease prevention and control programs in the coming years.

CCM Secretariat