Minister of Health Nguyen Thi Kim Tien gave a speech at the High-Level TB Meeting held on the sidelines of the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly in New York on September 26, 2018 (Photo: VNA)

She said the Party Central Committee has issued a resolution to basically eradicate TB by 2030 and the Vietnamese Government rolled out a national TB strategy. Ms. Tien pledged that Vietnam will join international efforts to ensure no individual nor country is left behind in the struggle to end the epidemic.

Deputy UN Secretary-General Amina Mohammed said the fight against TB is drastically under-funded, with a gap of around 13 billion USD per year. She said better health and social welfare systems and more investment are needed to stop this global health crisis, and better tools are needed to overcome microbial resistance. 60,000 drug-resistant cases of TB are reported every year.