Bill Gates Admires Vietnam Public Healthcare System
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates praised Vietnam’s community health programs, especially its vaccination programs, at a meeting with Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung Tuesday.
Gates said Vietnam had one of the best vaccination programs in the world despite still being a developing nation.
His wife Melinda said she was deeply impressed by Vietnam’s public healthcare system which has inoculated over 90 percent of children.
On his second trip to Vietnam, Gates looks to further supporting the health sector and sought the government’s support for future health programs funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Dung hailed Gates’s goodwill and hoped the foundation would step up its assistance to Vietnam’s health sector.
Earlier Gates met with Vietnamese health officials, representatives from the World Health Organization, United Nations Children’s Fund, and Japan International Cooperation Agency to discuss vaccination programs in the country.
The Microsoft chief’s first visit to Vietnam was in April last year when his company and Vietnam reached important IT agreements.
The Washington-based Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation was established in 2000 to help reduce inequities in the US and globally.
It focuses on global health, elimination of poverty and hunger, and education.
It is the world's largest humanitarian organization with an endowment of around US$33 billion.
Thanh Nien News
