Unilever Vietnam and Ministry of Health strengthen partnership

The signing ceremony took place within the framework of the programme meeting in response to National Hygiene Day organised by the MoH, Ha Tinh People's Committee, and the Unilever Vietnam Foundation.

The ceremony and associated meeting attracted 500 delegates, including leaders of the MoH, departments and institutes under the MoH, the leadership of Ha Tinh People's Committee, relevant management agencies, representatives of the Departments of Health and centres for Disease Prevention and Control from localities from Danang and the north, Unilever Vietnam, and central and local press agencies.

Partnership for a healthy and sustainable Vietnam

Currently, environmental pollution, climate change, natural disasters, floods and storms, urbanisation, and the ever-increasing demand for trade, tourism, and migration are potentially causing the emergence and outbreak of communicable diseases.

This prompts the need to maintain and implement programmes to prevent communicable diseases and provide primary healthcare, medical examinations, and treatments.

In parallel with the government’s efforts and directions, the participation from the private sector helps to spread these programmes widely, reaching more people within the country and providing support with essential products to manage personal hygiene and sanitation.

Unilever, for instance, can leverage its influence and products to bring healthcare and education programmes to tens of millions of consumers across Vietnam.

Therefore, Unilever and the Vietnam Health Environment Management Agency have just signed an MoU to implement the programme For a Healthy and Sustainable Vietnam over the next five years. The goal is to improve hygiene and health conditions for 15 million people nationwide.

The five-year partnership signing between Unilever and the MoH

Firstly, the initiative aims to raise awareness and create personal hygiene habits, such as encouraging handwashing with soap, living environment sanitation, and proper nutrition for the community to prevent diseases and protect health.

Additionally, the partnership provides an opportunity for Unilever and the MoH to jointly promote innovative activities while building models for clean hospitals, health stations, and residential areas to proactively prevent and manage epidemic risks. The aim is to provide continuous and long-term healthcare, contributing to reducing the burden of diseases and fatality rates, and improving the quality of life for citizens.

At the same time, Unilever supports the MoH to organise workshops to share knowledge and training to build capacity, along with forums and conferences to create dialogue between parties. This contributes to the development of a sustainable medical environment at both central and local levels.

Over the past 15 years, Unilever and its brands – namely Lifebuoy, Vim, P/S, Pureit, and OMO, among others – have teamed up with the MoH to implement several schemes to educate more than 22 million people with knowledge about personal hygiene habits.

These include Washing Hands with Soap for a Healthy Vietnam, Expanding the Scale of Clean Water and Sanitation in Rural Areas, Stay Strong Vietnam, and the 5K and 2K+ communication campaigns for COVID-19 prevention, to name but a few.

The exhibition to recap the 15 past years of partnership

The National Hygiene Movement

The MoH, together with Ha Tinh Province and the Unilever Foundation, also held a meeting in response to National Hygiene Day 2023 - For a Healthy and Sustainable Vietnam in Ha Tinh city to mobilise all levels of government, mass organisations, sociopolitical organisations, and the whole society to participate and closely coordinate in the activities, thus contributing to disease prevention and control.

The National Hygiene Day celebration

The activities included communication activities on hygiene and disease prevention and exhibiting the achievements of the National Hygiene Movement over the past decade, among others.

Over the last 10 years, the movement has achieved many outstanding results in terms of controlling the food poisoning situation to reduce the number of cases and deaths, doubling the rate of people maintaining the habit of washing hands with soap, increasing the proportion of rural households with hygienic toilets, and increasing the rate of clean water supply in rural households. It has also focused on medical waste from hospitals, and improved school sanitation.

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