2018 benue state budget

In November 2017, Adamed Pharma, a Polish pharmaceutical and biotechnology company, acquired the controlling stake in Davipharm, one of the fastest-growing pharmaceutical companies in Vietnam. This is the largest-ever direct private Polish investment in Vietnam.

With over 10 million US dollars invested by Adamed by the end of 2020, Davipharm’s production plant in Binh Duong, Vietnam’s first HP Zone for the production of oncological drugs in solid forms, is an important milestone in terms of investing in high-quality. This will be followed by EU-GMP certification later this year as a continuation of the company strategy focused on raising standards of drug production.

Michal Wieczorek, CEO of Davipharm, said: “The HP Zone in Davipharm answers the needs of Vietnam’s Ministry of Health, providing high-quality oncological drugs to Vietnamese patients. It will also increase the role of domestic drug manufacturers in optimizing the state budget, improve patient safety, and provide medicines to treat some of the most common diseases in Vietnam.

“Currently, eight out of ten people in Vietnam die from non-communicable diseases (NCDs), including cancers. This is also why Davipharm decided to be the first domestic drug manufacturer to become a partner of the Ministry of Health (MoH) in the prevention, early detection, and treatment of NCDs in Vietnam. We are proud to support MoH’s project ‘Vietnamese people giving priority to using Vietnamese drugs’”.

According to new regulations from Vietnam’s Ministry of Health, as well as guidelines from the World Health Organization (WHO), European Medicines Agency (EMA) and Pharmaceutical Inspection Co-operation Scheme (PIC/S), the production of certain products containing hazardous substances must be run at separate premises meeting specific criteria.

Davipharm’s portfolio includes 28 high potency (HP) drugs, among them oncology drugs for treatment of breast cancer, leukemia, pancreas, colorectal, stomach, cervix, prostate and lung cancer and glioblastoma.

The company has the capacity to produce batches from 15kg to 100kg with an annual output of five hundred million units of HP drugs. The total capacity of the factory is 1,800 million units a year.

My Phung

Dinh La Thang has received four court judgments

Dinh La Thang has received four court judgments. In addition to a 30-year prison sentence, the highest penalty for fixed-term imprisonment, the former Chair of PetroVietnam’s Board of Management has also been required by the court to pay compensation of VND830 billion.

On January 4, 2019, Hanoi judicial agencies organized forcible seizure of apartment No 109 + 209, CT4 bloc in the My Dinh urban area of Nam Tu Liem district in Hanoi owned by Thang. This is a duplex apartment with total usable area of 416 square meters. Thang and his wife had agreed to divide the apartment in half.

However, even with the seizure, Thang has only paid VND4.5 billion in compensation as part of court judgment decision.

The civil judgment in the case related to Thang is facing difficulties. The amount of money Thang has to pay is high, while distrained and other assets to ensure the judgment enforcement are insufficient.

Deputy Director General of Department of Civil Judgment Enforcement Nguyen Van Son said the responsibility of judgment enforcement agencies is to continue to verify and trace properties, including real estate and moveable properties and accounts.

The transparency of information about the assets of judgment debtors plays an important role in determining the efficiency of civil judgment enforcement.

But the verification of judgment execution still faces problems because asset information is not transparent in Vietnam.

If the person who owes compensation tries to disperse their properties in ways to avoid the judgment execution, can current laws prevent this?

Law amendment needed

A report from the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) showed that from January to September 2020, the total amount of money that needed to be collected for judgment execution was VND75.75 trillion, but execution bodies could collect only VND11.39 trillion, or 23.25 percent.

Article 7a of the Law on Civil Judgment Enforcement stipulates that judgment debtors (persons the court has decided must pay compensation) have the obligation of truthfully declaring assets and conditions for judgment execution; provide all documents and papers related to their property at the request of competent bodies; and take responsibility before law for the declarations.

From January to September 2020, the total amount of money that needed to be collected for judgment execution was VND75.75 trillion, but execution bodies could collect only VND11.39 trillion, or 23.25 percent.

However, if judgment debtors do not declare their assets and income, the punishment for this kind of violation is limited.

If they deliberately oppose the declaration, it will be very difficult to clarify information about their assets. In addition, it is easy for them to transfer their land, moveable assets or bank deposits to third parties and register the properties under other names.

This is the time when the assets of judgment debtors suddenly “disappear”.

Experts say that it is possible to prevent this behavior of dispersing and hiding assets by learning lessons from the experience of other countries.

Nguyen Van Nghia from MOJ said that German laws set regulations on the period of time in which judgment debtors must declare their assets, thereby helping to eliminate phony transactions that try to disperse assets before or after the judgments are made.

The German laws require details about all the transactions between judgment debtors and persons with whom they have close relations, which helps prevent the transfer of assets to these people.

The responsibility of providing information about assets and financial situation is the first legal obligation of judgment debtors. If they do not provide information or if they refuse to cooperate with judgment execution bodies without a legitimate reason, they are immediately arrested and detained so that their obligations for declaration can be fulfilled.

Under German law, there is no need to have an arrest warrant in advance, but it will be shown to them at the moment of arrest.

Since he was arrested in July 2017, Dinh La Thang has received four judgments from the court.

Under the appellate judgment released on May 14, 2018, Thang was sentenced to 13 years in prison, and required to compensate VND30 billion on the charge of “deliberately violating the State’s regulations on economic management, causing serious consequences”.

In June 2018, the high-level court in Hanoi sentenced Thang to 18 years in prison, and was told he had to pay VND600 billion in compensation.

On December 22, 2020, the HCM City People’s Court sentenced Thang to 10 years in prison for “violating regulations on the state’s asset management and use, causing losses and waste”.

On March 15, the Hanoi People’s Court sentenced him to 11 years in prison for “violating the regulations on investment in construction works, causing serious consequences”. Compensation of more than VND200 billion was required by the court.

From October 1, 2020 to February 28, 2021, the judgment execution bodies in 63 cities and provinces completed the execution of 178,437 out of 401,574 items, or 44.43 percent, with VND19 trillion seized for execution of judgments made by the courts.

T. Nhung

Reports from the Vietnam Administration for HIV/AIDS Control (VAAC) under the Ministry of Health show that over the past 30 years, HIV/AIDS prevention and control have received a great deal of attention from the Party and State, as well as from the concerned organisations and units.

Up until now, a system of relevant legal documents has been issued, creating an important legal corridor for the effective implementation of HIV/AIDS prevention and control. A series of HIV preventive activities have been implemented widely, diversely and effectively, including providing free needles and syringes across 52 provinces and cities, free condom distribution in 55 provinces and cities, replacing the addiction of opioid substances with methadone in 63 provinces and cities for more than 52,000 patients, and offering pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) to more than 13,000 clients in the last three years.

The country has more than 1,200 screening laboratories, covering 100% of districts, and 170 HIV-confirmed laboratories, covering 100% of provinces and cities nationwide. The HIV testing laboratory system is also piloting using rapid test results in remote and mountainous provinces.

Anti-Retrovirus (ARV) treatment is expanding day by day. A system of HIV/AIDS treatment facilities has been established and expanded treatment coverage, creating favourable conditions for HIV-infected people to access treatment services and maintain their long-term treatment. Currently, health facilities are treating more than 150,000 HIV patients, with 76% of them having access to ARV treatment programmes in 446 treatment facilities and 652 drug dispensing ones.

Many models have been deployed to improve the effectiveness of treatment, such as a combination model of antiretroviral therapy with tuberculosis/HIV combination therapy and provision of HIV preventive interventions. Many models of rapid treatment with drug delivery for many months have been widely deployed. Up until now, the viral load in HIV infected people is below the inhibitory threshold, making Vietnam one of four countries (along with Germany, Switzerland and the UK) meeting this target globally.

Prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV has been highly effective, with the number of children infected with HIV due to mother-to-child transmission continuously having decreased from 2012 to present. The rate of mother-to-child transmission among children receiving ARV treatment in the past four years has been below 2.5%. On the other hand, the rate of people with HIV/AIDS having health insurance cards has also increased rapidly, from 50% in 2015 to 91% in 2019.

The rate of people infected with HIV/AIDS is decreasing, helping Vietnam be rated by the international community as a bright spot for HIV/AIDS prevention and control. With specific efforts and measures, Vietnam has maintained the HIV prevalence rate in the population below 0.3% in accordance with the National Strategy on HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control to 2020, with a vision to 2030.

From 2007 up to now, the number of newly discovered HIV infections each year has tended to decrease. While more than 28,000 cases were detected each year on average during the 2005-2007 period, from 2012 up to now, on average, only 10,000 new HIV cases were detected each year.

According to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), in Asia Pacific, Vietnam has seen the largest decrease in the estimated number of new HIV infections in 2018 (64%) as compared with 2010. The number of new HIV infections in Vietnam in 2018 accounted for only about 2% of the total estimated new HIV infections for the region.

According to Dr. Do Hoang Long, Director General of VAAC, although many great achievements have been achieved, HIV/AIDS prevention and control work in Vietnam is still facing many risks and challenges, as HIV/AIDS is still one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in the country. It is estimated Vietnam currently has 230,000 people infected with HIV, ranking fourth in Southeast Asia. In addition, 10,000 new HIV infections are detected each year. HIV infection has seen complicated developments recently, especially with the increase in the use of synthetic drugs, sexually transmitted infections and HIV prevalence among men who reported male-to-male sexual contact. Besides, funding sources are being cut fast, while domestic financial sources have not been able to compensate for this.

In order to achieve the goal of “ending the HIV/AIDS epidemic by 2030”, in the next decade, Vietnam needs to continue to step up its HIV/AIDS prevention and control activities to reduce the number of new HIV infections and related deaths, while expanding and implementing harm reduction and HIV prevention intervention, diversifying forms of HIV testing and detection, improving the quality of HIV/AIDS treatment, and making plans to ensure annual funds are allocated according to the approved plans.

The last stage will be the most arduous, but Vietnam will act together as a united bloc and uphold its commitment not to leave anyone behind and put an end to the AIDS epidemic, making AIDS no longer a danger for public health and realising its Sustainable Development Goals.