The event was attended by Associate Professor Nguyen Truong Son, Vietnamese deputy minister of health; Gareth Ward, UK Ambassador to Vietnam; Nitin Kapoor, President and CEO of AstraZeneca Vietnam, and experts from the Ministry of Health.

Senior representatives from the Malaysian Ministry of Health, World Health Organization, DigitalHealth.London, AstraZeneca and University of Oxford, UK, also attended the dialogue online from overseas.

Statistics shared at the dialogue show that NCDs are on the rise across the world with 71 per cent of global deaths resulting from those illnesses. More than 85 per cent of NCDs’ premature fatalities occur in low-income and middle-income countries.

The global health systems have to make difficult decisions to meet the urgent needs of medical check-up and treatment during COVID-19 and in the context that medical services for NCD patients are already overloaded.

The burden of NCDs placed on health and finance is very high, especially for vulnerable groups amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Associate Professor Nguyen Truong Son, Vietnamese deputy minister of health, said in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic spreading globally, scientific and practical evidence in Vietnam shows that the elderly and people with NCDs, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, cancer and end-stage kidney disease suffer more serious impacts of the virus. The healthcare system is severely affected by the double burdens of infectious and non-communicable diseases.

Sharing the Vietnamese healthcare sector’s experience in addressing those challenges, Son said: "To prevent and combat COVID-19 as well as to maintain NCD treatment and service management, Vietnam has implemented a number of response actions such as making recommendations on COVID-19 prevention, control and disease self-management for the elderly and people with chronic diseases; remote healthcare check-up and treatment; health insurance coverage for patients with chronic illnesses.”

Gareth Ward, UK Ambassador to Vietnam, emphasised that health was one of the priority areas in the 10-year strategic partnership between the UK and Vietnam.

The COVID-19 pandemic shows us the importance of international co-operation in responding to global health problems, he said, hoping that through this forum, the Vietnamese Ministry of Health and global health experts would discuss and find out opportunities for co-operation in the prevention and treatment of NCDs during the pandemic.

Health experts at the dialogue focused their discussions on COVID-19’s impacts on the treatment of NCDs in ASEAN and the role of technology in improving healthcare.

The experts agreed that digitisation in the healthcare sector had helped significantly improve the capacity of the sector. This can be seen clearly in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic./.