Social protection centre for AO/dioxin victims upgraded

Three children in a family suffer from deformities due to dioxin (Photo: VNA)

The project, started last August, was funded by a 150,000 USD grant from Gyeonggi province of the Republic of Korea (RoK), through the Vietnam Environment Protection Fund of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MoNRE).

Five years since its establishment, the social protection centre has offered accommodation, rehabilitation and training for AO/dioxin victims.

The project has repaired and built new sauna rooms to serve detoxification treatment. It also created a medicinal herb garden spanning nearly 1,000 sq.m, and improved the landscape at the centre.

At the ceremony, representative of the sponsor Shin Myung-seob voiced his hope that the project will help to ease the pain of AO/dioxin victims in Vietnam.

For his part, Chairman of the Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent Orange/dioxin (VAVA) Nguyen Van Rinh highly valued the support of people of the RoK for AO/dioxin victims in Vietnam, adding that the project will contribute to the development of the Vietnam-RoK friendship.

On the occasion, the VAVA Central Committee presented the insignia “For AO/dioxin victims” and certificates of merit to individuals and Gyeonggi province authorities in recognition of their support for Vietnamese AO/dioxin victims.

The US army sprayed some 80 million litres of toxic chemicals, 61 percent of which was Agent Orange containing 366 kilograms of dioxin, over nearly one quarter of the total area of southern Vietnam from 1961 to 1971.

Preliminary statistics showed that 4.8 million Vietnamese people were exposed to AO/dioxin, and about 3 million people became victims. Tens of thousands of people have died while millions of others have suffered from cancer and other incurable diseases as consequences of exposure. Many of their offspring have also suffered from birth deformities.