Vietnam’s success

Pakistan has more than 258,000 confirmed cases and 5,424 deaths from Covid-19 so far. We still don’t know where these numbers will end up. But at the moment, the number of new cases is said to be on the decline since the beginning of July.

The percentage of people testing positive is also decreasing. In June, nearly 22 percent people were testing positive which has dropped to below 10 percent in July. Government ministers are claiming that the slowdown in the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic is the result of the PTI government’s policies. After more than five thousand deaths, could we declare our response best in Asia?

Critics are pointing out that the government has also reduced the daily testing by nearly 40 percent. That might be one reason for the declining numbers – but there are certainly other factors too.

The first large wave of the coronavirus infection in Pakistan was the result of the decision made to reopen businesses before Eidul Fitr. The SOPs were widely violated during the shopping spree at the time. People also ignored social distancing during the Eid days.

For them, Pakistan is a success story in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic in Asia and credit goes to the policy of ‘smart lockdowns’. They are comparing this declining trend in Pakistan with the rising infections and deaths in India, the US and Brazil.

We must look around in Asia before declaring ourselves models for others. There are other countries in Asia which performed better than Pakistan. We need to learn from them.

Vietnam is one such country in Asia. Vietnam has managed to successfully contain Covid-19. It has reported no death so far. The IMF sees Vietnam as a model for developing countries. Vietnam is not a rich country. Its per capita income is around $3,000 and it is considered a middle-income country. In comparison, Pakistan has per capita income of nearly $1362.

It is not surprising at all that Vietnam contained the Covid-19 pandemic so effectively and rapidly, given that it spends a huge amount every year on public health. In the last ten years, it has made huge investments in upgrading the public health system and facilities. Its preparedness, better health facilities and timely decisions helped it to contain the virus.

One of the reasons Vietnam was able to act so quickly is that the country experienced SARS in 2003 and human cases of avian influenza between 2004 and 2010. Therefore, Vietnam had both the experience and the infrastructure to take appropriate action.

Vietnam has invested heavily in its healthcare system, with public health expenditures per capita increasing an average rate of 9.0 percent per year between 2000 and 2016. These investments have paid off with rapidly improving health indicators. Between 1990 and 2015, life expectancy rose from 71 years to 75 years, infant mortality rate fell from 36.9 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1990 to 16.5 deaths in 2018, and the maternal mortality ratio plummeted from 139 deaths per 100,000 live births to 54 deaths. The 2018 immunization rate for measles in children ages 12 to 23 months is over 97 percent.

That is why when the healthcare systems of the most powerful countries in the world have failed to curb the spread of Covid-19, countries like Vietnam have done exceptionally well against the pandemic.

Although Vietnam reported its first case of Covid-19 on January 23, 2020, it reported only a little more than 300 cases and zero deaths over the following four months. This early success has been attributed to several key factors, including a well-developed public health system, centralised planning, and a proactive containment strategy based on comprehensive testing, tracing, and quarantining. The involvement of communities in the containment efforts also played an important role.

Like China, Vietnam also has a hybrid economic system called market socialism. The public sector dominates the economy and central planning plays an important role in the economy. Vietnam has a vibrant private sector but the state dominates the economy. This hybrid system played a key role in the better performance of Vietnam against Covid-19.

Three IMF experts have written a blog on Vietnam’s success story. Era Dabla-Norris, Anne-Marie Gulde-Wolf, and Francois Painchaud, IMF Asia and Pacific Department wrote a blog for the IMF and explained how Vietnam successfully contained the coronavirus despite having limited resources. The IMF experts have said that developing countries can learn from Vietnam to fight against the Covid-19 pandemic.

"Public buy-in was critical for success. From an early stage, communications about the virus and the strategy were transparent. Details on symptoms, protective measures, and testing sites were communicated through mass media, a government website, public grass-root organizations, posters at hospitals, offices, residential buildings and markets, via text messages on mobile phones, and as voice messages before a phone call could be made.

“The government also launched a contact tracing app in big cities. This well-coordinated multi-media approach strengthened public trust and helped society adhere to protective and containment measures.

“While a higher-cost, mass-testing strategy was adopted in most advanced economies to combat the pandemic, Vietnam focused on high-risk and suspected cases and conducted only 350,000 tests, a relatively small share of its population. However, around 1,000 people per confirmed case were tested, the highest ratio in the world.

“In parallel, Vietnam used extensive contact tracing, isolation and quarantining, up to third-tier contacts. Groups of people who lived near confirmed cases, sometimes an entire street or village, were swiftly tested and isolated, which helped limit community transmission. Nearly 450,000 people have been quarantined (either at hospitals or state-run facilities or self-isolation). Treatment and quarantine in hospitals were provided free of charge for Vietnamese."

The writer is a freelance journalist.