Blood donation volunteer

Dien Bien (VNA) – The Red Spring Festival, a voluntary blood donation event, is taking place in the northern mountainous province of Dien Bien on March 5, with more than 300 people coming to register.

This activity aims to encourage people in good health from all social strata to donate blood, helping to address the blood shortage in medical treatment after the Lunar New Year holiday, especially after a hiatus in donation activities due to the COVID-19 resurgence.

Disease prevention measures were carried out to ensure safety for participants, organisers said.

The event is expected to collect more than 210 blood units.

According to the Dien Bien steering committee for voluntary blood donation , this movement has been developing extensively and intensively in the province over the past years, with an increasing number of donors. Donation are now not limited to youngsters or State employees but have been expanded to people from all social strata.

Apart from the Red Spring Festival, other annual events to encourage blood donation have also been maintained, it noted, adding that clubs of blood donors have actively worked to serve emergency needs at the province’s general hospital.

The National Steering Committee for Voluntary Blood Donation has set a goal to collect over 1.5 million blood units in 2021, with 99 percent of which donated by volunteers. The rate of blood donors in the population is hoped to reach 1.6 percent this year.

Director of the committee’s standing office Le Gia Tien said at a recent conference that last year, thanks to many initiatives and great efforts to overcome difficulties caused by COVID-19, the committee received approximately 1.4 million units of blood, helping millions of patients.

The majority of blood units were donated by volunteers, equivalent to nearly 1.5 percent of the population. Half of the givers donated their blood more than once./.

VNA

Hanoi (VNA) – People, aged from 18-59 and residing in Hanoi, can register for human t rials of Vietnam’s second COVID-19 vaccine candidate COVIVAC from March 5 morning.

In the first phase of the trials, 150 healthy volunteers will be injected with two doses of 0.5ml with an interval of 28 days.

They will be divided into five groups, including one group provided with placebo shots, and their health will be closely monitored within 24 hours after injections.

Each volunteer will have their health checked-up eight times in 12 months.

After 43 days since the first phase starts and shows good results, the second phase will be carried out at the medical centre of Thai Binh province’s Vu Thu district, with 300 volunteers.

The homegrown vaccine has been developed by the Nha Trang-based Institute of Vaccines and Medical Biologicals (IVAC) and the Hanoi Medical University since last May, using primary chicken embryo cell culture, a technique the institute used previously to successfully produce seasonal flu vaccines.

COVIVAC has undergone pre-clinical trials in India, the US, and Vietnam, said IVAC Director Dr. Duong Huu Thai, adding that results showed that it satisfies all conditions to be tested on humans.

The vaccine candidate demonstrated high immunogenicity during pre-clinical trials. It was created based on studies of new SARS-CoV-2 strains.

This vaccine is expected to have a price of around 60,000 VND (2.59 USD) per dose./.

VNA

The Vietnam Women’s Union organized a ceremony to give the Kovalevskaia award 2020 with the participation of Associate professor Nguyen Thi Doan, former Vice President, chairwoman of the Kovalevskaia Award Committee.

For individual category, Associate Professor Truong Thanh Huong, lecturer of Cardiovascular Faculty of the Hanoi-based Medical University won the award. Lecturer, associate professor Truong Thanh Huong has made great achievement in researches with the outstanding one being her research “Building an inherited gene mutation causing high levels of blood cholesterol”.

Moreover, she has proposed management models of illness in Vietnam. Her research of an inherited gene mutation causing high levels of blood cholesterol was certified by the Ministry of Science and Technology and transferred to medical facilities for application in taking care of nearly 500,000 Vietnamese people suffering hereditary blood cholesterol.

For team category, female scientists of the Institute of Natural Product Chemistry under the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology won the award. They have made research on biologically-active compounds with natural origins for application into real life to better human health.

A group of researchers led by associate professors Ngo Kim Chi and Le Thi Phuong Quynh have made the project “Level and measures to limit greenhouse gas emissions in production of coffee in the Central Highlands Province of Dak Lak”, which also won the award.

The Kovalevskaya Award was named after the Russian mathematician Sofia Kovalevskaya. The award, the first national award for female scientists, started to be presented in Vietnam in 1986.

The prestigious annual award is given to organizations and individuals who are female scientists and have excellent achievements in research and applying science into life, bringing benefits in different fields including economy, society and culture.

Since 1986, the award has been presented to 19 organizations and 48 individuals in various fields such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, agriculture, medicine and information technology.