Vietnamese Health Care

The Vietnamese health system is good with life expectancy at 70.6 years and infant mortality at 2.6% of live births. However, the government spends only 0.9% of GDP on health care. In 2000, there were 14.8 hospital beds per 10,000 of the population, which itself is a very low value for Asia. 80% of all expenditures for the health system come from the patients themselves.

Once in the 1980s and 1990s, diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis, dengue fever, typhoid and cholera constitute major problems. Vietnam has accepted foreign aid and these epidemics are largely suppressed.

The HIV prevalence in 2005 was officially at 0.35%, which corresponds to the global average. HIV/AIDS patients are socially ostracized however, making an effective fight against the epidemic difficult. After the numerous wars in Vietnam’s pas, 5 million Vietnamese and 6% of the population are disabled.