Blood pressure screening during the May Measurement Month 2017 programme in Vietnam-South-East Asia and Australasia.

Elevated blood pressure (BP) is a growing burden worldwide, leading to over 10 million deaths each year. May Measurement Month (MMM) is a global initiative aimed at raising awareness of high BP and to act as a temporary solution to the lack of screening programmes worldwide. Our aim was to screen for hypertension (HTN) and cardiovascular risk factors in people aged ≥18 years in the community, thereby define the proportion of subjects with elevated BP and assess the awareness and the effectiveness of its treatment. An opportunistic cross-sectional survey of volunteers aged ≥18 years was carried out in May 2017. Blood pressure measurement, the definition of HTN and statistical analysis followed the standard MMM protocol. From May 2017 to June 2017, through 10 cities/provinces in Vietnam, 10 993 individuals with mean age 49.1 ± 16.2 years were screened during MMM17. After multiple imputation, 3154 (28.7%) had HTN. Of individuals not receiving antihypertensive medication, 1509 (16.1%) were hypertensive. Of individuals receiving antihypertensive medication, 620 (37.7%) had uncontrolled BP. Raised BP was also associated with additional risk factors including smoking, alcohol, overweight-obesity, and diabetes. May Measurement Month 17 was the largest BP screening campaign ever undertaken in Vietnam. Undiagnosed and uncontrolled HTN in Vietnam remains a substantial health problem. Local campaigns applying standardized methods such as MMM17, will be highly useful to screen for the significant number of individuals with raised BP and increase the awareness of HTN

Quantifying the Emergence of Dengue in Hanoi, Vietnam: 1998–2009

Dengue is the most common vector-borne viral disease of humans, causing an estimated 50 million cases per year. The number of countries affected by dengue has increased dramatically in the last 50 years and dengue is now a major public health problem in large parts of the tropical and subtropical world. It is of considerable importance to understand the factors that determine how dengue becomes newly established in areas where the risk of dengue was previously small. Hanoi in North Vietnam is a large city where dengue appears to be emerging. We analyzed 12 years of dengue surveillance data in order to characterize the temporal and spatial epidemiology of dengue in Hanoi and to establish if dengue incidence has been increasing. After excluding the two major outbreak years of 1998 and 2009 and correcting for changes in population age structure over time, we found there was a significant annual increase in the incidence of notified dengue cases over the period 1999–2008. Dengue cases were concentrated in young adults in the highly urban central areas of Hanoi. This study indicates that dengue transmission is increasing in Hanoi and provides a platform for further studies of the underlying drivers of this emergence

Blood pressure screening results from May Measurement Month 2019 in Vietnam

Elevated blood pressure (BP) is a growing burden worldwide, leading to over 10 million deaths each year. May Measurement Month (MMM) is a global initiative to raise awareness of high BP and act as a temporary solution to the lack of screening programmes worldwide. We aimed to screen for hypertension and cardiovascular risk factors in people aged ≥18 years in the community, thereby defining the proportion of subjects with elevated BP and assess the awareness and the effectiveness of its treatment. An opportunistic cross-sectional survey of volunteers aged ≥18 years was carried out in May 2019. Blood pressure measurement, the definition of hypertension and statistical analysis followed the standard MMM protocol. From May 2019 to June 2019, through 10 cities/provinces in Vietnam, 25 887 individuals with mean age 48.7 (SD ±17.7) years were screened. After multiple imputations, 8758 (33.8%) had hypertension. Of individuals not receiving antihypertensive medication, 3025 (15.0%) were hypertensive. Of individuals receiving antihypertensive medication, 2800 (48.8%) had uncontrolled BP. Raised BP [systolic BP (SBP) ≥140 mmHg and/or diastolic BP (DBP) ≥90 mmHg] was also associated with additional risk factors including smoking, alcohol intake, previous hypertension in pregnancy, and obesity. May Measurement Month 2019 was the most extensive BP screening campaign ever undertaken in Vietnam. Undiagnosed and uncontrolled hypertension in Vietnam remains a substantial health problem. Local campaigns applying standardized methods such as MMM 2019 will be beneficial to screen for the significant number of individuals with raised BP and increase the awareness of hypertension

May measurement month 2018: an analysis of blood pressure screening results from Vietnam.

Vietnam in the Asia Pacific region has a high hypertension (HTN) prevalence. The May Measurement Month (MMM) program was enthusiastically responded to in Vietnam by launching and deploying it across the whole country from 2017. The aims of the MMM 2018 program in Vietnam were to screen at least 15 000 people aged 18 and over across the country; to inform participants of the risks associated with HTN; and thereby define the proportion of subjects with elevated blood pressure (BP) and assess the awareness and the effectiveness of its treatment. An opportunistic cross-sectional survey of volunteers aged ≥ 18 was carried out in May 2018. Blood pressure measurement, the definition of HTN, and statistical analysis followed the standard MMM protocol. From May 2018 to June 2018, through 10 cities/provinces in Vietnam, 17 332 individuals with mean age 47.0 ± 17.9 years were screened during MMM18. After multiple imputation, 5260 (30.3%) had HTN. Of individuals not receiving antihypertensive medication, 1956 (13.9%) were hypertensive. Of patients receiving antihypertensive medication, 1540 (46.6%) had uncontrolled BP. Those who had HTN also displayed many additional risk factors similarly to MMM 2017 including smoking, alcohol, overweight-obesity, and diabetes. In conclusion, MMM 2018 campaign is a continuation program of MMM 2017 that has promoted the strength of the BP screening survey in the community in Vietnam, which hopefully will influence on awareness of disease prevention in this century. The next steps of the program will have special innovations on how to reduce the frequency of focusing on variable risk factors to change the overall picture of HTN in Vietnam

Changing livelihood options as adaptation: A comparative analysis of three flood control schemes in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta

Population, Development, and the Environment - Challenges to Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals in the Asia Pacific137-154Singapor