Cablegate: Hhs Secretary Leavitt's Meeting with the Director

This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 HANOI 002825

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STATE FOR G; CA/OCS/ACS/EAP; EAP/EX; EAP/MLS; EAP/EP; INR;
OES/STC (PBATES); OES/IHA (DSINGER AND NCOMELLA)
BANGKOK FOR RMO, CDC, USAID/RDM/A (MFRIEDMAN)
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DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE FOR OSD/ISA/AP (LSTERN)
HOMELAND SECURITY COUNCIL FOR RVENKAYYA
NSC FOR FSHIRZAD AND JMELINE
USAID FOR ANE AND GH (DCAROLL, SCLEMENTS AND PCHAPLIN)
STATE PASS USTR (ELENA BRYAN)
STATE ALSO PASS HHS/OGHA (WSTEIGER AND EELVANDER)
USMISSION GENEVA FOR HEALTH ATTACHE
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SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED - DO NOT POST ON THE INTERNET

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: AMED AMGT CASC EAGR PINR SOCI PGOV TBIO VM HIV AIDS AFLU
SUBJECT: HHS SECRETARY LEAVITT'S MEETING WITH THE DIRECTOR
OF THE VIETNAMESE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF HYGIENE AND
EPIDEMIOLOGY

1. (SBU) Summary: U.S. Secretary of Health and Human
Services (HHS) Michael Leavitt met with the Director of
Vietnam's National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology
(NIHE), Dr. Nguyen Tran Hien, on October 14 to highlight
NIHE's efforts to combat avian influenza (AI), learn about
the Institute's ongoing research and vaccine development
work, and identify areas for expanded cooperation. The
Secretary and his delegation then toured NIHE's AI vaccine

SIPDIS
production and HIV testing facilities. End Summary.

NIHE'S MISSION AND FOCUS
------------------------

2. (U) On October 14, U.S. HHS Secretary Michael Leavitt met
with the Director of Vietnam's National Institute of Hygiene
and Epidemiology (NIHE), Dr. Nguyen Tran Hien, for 25
minutes, the second in a series of meetings with Vietnamese
officials on improving U.S.-Vietnam health cooperation. A
full list of participants follows in paragraphs 13, 14, and
15. NIHE Director Hien opened with a PowerPoint
presentation that explained NIHE's history, structure,
functions and primary research topics.

3. (SBU) Hien explained that NIHE was originally called the
Pasteur Institute, founded in 1926 under French rule.
(NOTE: The North Vietnamese Government nationalized the
Pasteur facilities at independence; there is now a Pasteur
Institute in HCMC and a separate Pasteur Institute branch in
Nha Trang. NIHE is the only Pasteur facility in Hanoi. END
NOTE.) Only in 1962 did it evolve into its present form,
which includes 12 technical departments and five
administrative and logistical departments; NIHE is an arm of
the Vietnamese Ministry of Health. The twelve technical
departments reflect NIHE's focus on disease research and
control. They include epidemiology, bacteriology, virology,
molecular biology and immunology, HIV/AIDS, infection
control and biosafety, medical entomology and zoology,
national coordination offices, training and research
management, network coordination, animal experimentation,
and vaccine and biological production. Hien said NIHE's 427-
person staff is split between the NIHE facility (256
employees) and the co-located, state-owned Vaccine
Production Company (171 employees).

4. (SBU) The Institute has five main functions, Hien
continued. The primary function is research, in which NIHE
focuses on three specific areas. The first is research into
epidemiology, including vaccine trials. The second research
area focuses on microbiology and virology, especially
diagnostic protocols and drug resistance. The third area of
research is immunology and molecular biology, which has
produced test kits for diagnosing infectious diseases.

5. (U) The second function is training. Postgraduates,
graduate students, laboratory technicians and provincial
health workers all have access to different types of
training throughout NIHE's twelve technical departments.
The third function, supervision of the preventive medicine
system in Vietnam, is closely linked to NIHE's training
efforts.

6. (U) Vaccine production is NIHE's fourth, and possibly its
most important, function, Hien explained. The Institute is
currently working on developing a human vaccine for a number
of diseases, including AI. Finally, NIHE is also
responsible for bilateral and multilateral cooperation in
biomedical research with other governments and research
agencies.

7. (U) Hien provided each delegate with a copy of his
slides, including a very useful diagram on Vietnam's disease
surveillance system that illustrated how information flows
from the many small health stations at the commune level in
Vietnam all the way up to the Ministry of Health (MOH) at
the national level.

U.S. TARGETS AI SURVEILLANCE AND HIV/AIDS PATIENTS
--------------------------------------------- -----

8. (U) Secretary Leavitt welcomed Hien's remarks, and noted
that it was critical that the United States and Vietnam meet
the common challenge of AI together as a member of the world
health community. Surveillance is the first line of defense
in any pandemic, he said, and reiterated that good
surveillance requires competent, fast and prepared science.
Achieving that good surveillance, and ensuring the swift
sharing of epidemiological samples, the Secretary stressed,
is one of the top goals of the United States and of this
visit.

9. (U) HIV/AIDS is also an issue of particular concern to
the United States, the Secretary added. Vietnam's
designation as the 15th focus country in the President's
Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) reflects this
concern. The United States understand that Vietnamese
people suffering from HIV/AIDS need access to the
appropriate, high-quality generic anti-retroviral (ARV)
drugs to help them combat this disease. The United States
wants to work with the GVN to expand the use of generic ARV
drugs given tentative approval by the HHS Food and Drug
Administration to provide assistance to the maximum number
of people possible.

U.S. PRAISE FOR NIHE'S COOPERATION
----------------------------------

10. (U) Following HHS Secretary Leavitt's remarks, Dr. Julie
Gerberding, Director of the HHS Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention (CDC), began her remarks by thanking NIHE for
the impressive cooperation it has provided HHS/CDC in recent
months. She emphasized that NIHE's ability to bring
epidemiology and laboratory science together to create
effective interventions was particularly noteworthy, and
expressed hope that HHS/CDC and NIHE could continue this
cooperative relationship into the future.

11. (U) Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National
Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) within
the HHS National Institutes of Health (NIH), echoed HHS/CDC
Director Gerberding's comments, by noting that he hoped NIHE
and NIAID could expand their productive collaborations even
further. He commended Vietnam's decision to join the
Emerging Infectious Diseases Clinical Network in Southeast
Asia, funded by HHS/NIH, and he expressed hope that
HHS/NIH/NIAID and NIHE could exchange their respective
lessons learned on the clinical trials for vaccine
development to provide the safest and fastest results
possible.

12. (U) After concluding their discussion, NIHE Director
Hien led HHS Secretary Leavitt and his delegation on a tour
of NIHE's HIV/AIDS and AI research laboratories. (COMMENT:
While Dr. Hien inspires confidence as the most competent and
professional scientific leader in the Vietnamese Government,
experts on the U.S. delegation expressed some concerns about
the NIHE vaccine-production facilities and methodology,
particularly whether they would meet international standards
for Good Manufacturing Practices. Some participants noted
that they had toured private-sector vaccine-manufacturing
plants in the past and had never gotten anywhere as close to
the actual production equipment as NIHE staff allowed the
delegation. HHS will be investing USD 500,000 with NIHE to
help improve the quality of the production of its cell-based
vaccine against the H5N1 strain of AI. END COMMENT.)

PARTICIPANTS
------------

13. (U) U.S. Participants:
U.S. HHS Secretary Michael Leavitt
Dr. Paula Dobriansky, Under Secretary of State for Democracy
and Global Affairs
U.S. Ambassador Michael Marine
Kerry Weems, HHS Deputy Chief of Staff
Dr. Kent Hill, Acting Assistant Administrator for Global
Health, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)
Dr. James Butler, Under Secretary for Farm and Foreign
Agricultural Services, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)
Dr. Julie Gerberding, Director, HHS/CDC
Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director, HHS/NIH/NIAID
Suzy De Francis, Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs, HHS
Dr. William Steiger, Special Assistant for International
Affairs, HHS
Dr. Vaughan Turekian, Special Assistant to Under Secretary
Dobriansky
Allyson Bell, Director of Scheduling and Advance, HHS
HHS Hanoi Health Attache Marie Sweeney
HHS/CDC Chief of Party Mitchell Wolfe
USDA/FAS Hanoi Attache John Wade
USAID Hanoi Director Dennis Zvinakis

14. (U) Vietnamese Participants:
Director General of the National Institute of Hygiene and
Epidemiology (NIHE) Nguyen Tran Hien
Director of the International Department of Cooperation
(IDC) at the Ministry of Health (MOH) Tran Trong Hai
MOH Vice Minister Trinh Quan Huan, NIHE Deputy Director
Nguyen Thi Hong Hanh
MOH Deputy Director General of the Department of Preventive
Medicine Nguyen Van Binh
NIHE Deputy Director Dang Duc Anh
NIHE Deputy Director Pham Ngoc Dinh
NIHE Head of the Department of Molecular Biology and
Immunology Vu Tan Trao
NIHE Head of the Department of Epidemiology Nguyen Thuy Hoa
NIHE Director of VABIOTECH Nguyen Thu Van
NIHE Head of Networking Coordination Nguyen Anh Dung
NIHE Head of the Department of Microbiology Nguyen Binh Minh
NIHE Head of the Department of Training and Research
Management Ho Minh Ly
NIHE Head of the Department of Virology Le Thi Quynh Mai

15. (U) International Organization Participants:
Dr. Margaret Chan, Assistant Director-General for
Communicable Disease, World Health Organization (WHO)
Dr. He Changchui, Assistant Director-General,
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)
Dr. Alejandro Thiermann, Special Representative to the
Director General of the Terrestrial Animal Health Standards
Commission, World Organization for Animal Health (OIE)

16. (U) Secretary Leavitt's party has cleared this cable.

BOARDMAN

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