[Franco-Vietnamese military cooperation in the field of malaria]

In 1991 after the long period of strife the international community moved on deploying a program for malaria control in Vietnam. At that time epidemiological surveys documented one million cases a year including 4 to 5,000 fatalities. This was the starting point for a military and defense cooperation program between the Vietnamese Army Health Corps and the Tropical Medicine Institute of the French Army Health Corps (French acronym, IMTSSA). The IMTSSA has the full range of expertise to train therapists, epidemiologists and research workers as well as to perform detection and pharmacological study of drug-resistant malaria strains. Between 1996 and 2002, the IMTSSA sent various specialists to Vietnam within the framework of this program. These specialists have not only established state-of-the-art technical facilities for epidemiological surveys and biological research but also trained Vietnamese specialists to perform these duties. This program has contributed to controlling malaria in Vietnam. Further development is needed to coordinate the exchange of data necessary to continuously monitor the efficacy of control measures in Southeast Asia where the incidence of strains resistant to most currently used antimalarials has been increasing sharply.