Flood vulnerability and resilience in peri-urbanizing Vietnam : a case study from Ninh Binh province

Peri-urban areas in Vietnam are caught between development and conservation needs, between economic development and environmental protection, between cultural preservation and sustainable development. This chapter/article examines vulnerabilities and challenges from flooding in peri-urban communities of the city of Ninh Binh, focusing on: (a) local socioeconomic development policy and the establishment of the Khanh Phu Industrial Zone; (b) impacts caused by flooding and lack of regulations, unplanned built environments, and underdeveloped water infrastructure; and (c) the varying adaptations of different social groups of households. It also explores how institutional adaptation programmes together with household responses collectively determine the resilience of the system

Effectiveness of sofosbuvir based direct-acting antiviral regimens for chronic hepatitis C virus genotype 6 patients: Real-world experience in Vietnam

Background: Hepatitis C virus (HCV) genotype 6 is the commonest cause of chronic hepatitis C infection in much of southeast Asia, but data on the effectiveness of direct-acting antiviral agents (DAAs) against this genotype are limited. We conducted a retrospective cohort study of patients attending the Hospital for Tropical Diseases (HTD), Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, to define the effectiveness of DAAs in the treatment of chronic HCV genotype 6 in actual practice. Methods: We included all patients with genotype 6 infections attending our hospital between March 2016 and October 2017 who received treatment with sofosbuvir-based DAA treatment regimens, and compared their responses with those with genotype 1 infections. Results: 1758 patients (1148 genotype 6, 65.4%; 610 genotype 1, 34.6%) were analyzed. The majority of patients (1480, 84.2%) received sofosbuvir/ledipasvir (SOF/LDV) ± ribavirin (RBV); 278 (15.8%) received sofosbuvir/Daclatasvir (SOF/DCV) ± RBV. The median age of the patients was 57 years, (interquartile range (IQR) 46–64 years) The baseline HCV viral load (log IU/ml) was significantly higher in patients infected with genotype 6 compared with those infected with genotype 1 (6.8, 5.3–6.6 versus 6.3, 5.3–6.5 log10 IU/ml, p = Conclusions: Our study suggests that patients with HCV genotype 6 infection in Vietnam may respond less well to treatment with sofosbuvir based DAAs than patients with genotype 1 infections. Further studies are needed to confirm this observation and to define whether it is driven by genotype-specific mutations.</br