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The workshop on training and research at the universities in Southern Vietnam was held in Can Tho city from 24^th to 25^th October, 2013. The participants are lecturers and researchers from Hue, Tay Nguyen, Ho Chi Minh City and Can Tho universities. Notably, staff from Regional Animal Health Office VI and VII, Sub-Department of Animal Health of 13 provinces in the Cuu Long River Delta, Ho Chi Minh Pasteur institute and Thao Cam Vien Center for training and wildlife preservation, Ho Chi Minh also joined the event.
On 5th September 2013, Dr. Nguyen Thanh Huong - Deputy Dean of the HSPH - received Dr. Kohei Makita from the Rakuno Gakuen University (RGU), Japan. The purpose of the visit was to strengthen the collaboration and realize the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in research and training partnership between the two institutions. The MOU aims at (i) mutually providing of academic materials, publications, information, and so on (ii) fostering the exchange of faculty and students (iii) conducting joint research projects (iv) and holding joint academic events, such as seminars and academic conferences.
A partnership international research project on Resource Recovery and Reuse (RRR), which is funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), has been launched in 2012 and will include Hanoi as one of the 4 study sites. The project involves six institutions namely the World Health Organization (WHO) based in Geneva (Switzerland), the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) based in Colombo (Sri Lanka), the International Centre for Water Management Services (CEWAS) based in Willisau (Switzerland), the Department of Water and Sanitation in Developing Countries (Sandec) of the Swiss Federal Institute for Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag) based in Zurich (Switzerland) and the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH) based in Basel (Switzerland).
Countries in Southeast Asia have significant wildlife resources, facing similar challenges and threats, including legal and illegal wildlife trade, human and wildlife conflict issues, and wildlife diseases. Additionally, wildlife is part of the region’s unique biodiversity and contributes to well functioning ecosystem that is closely linked to human health. Although wildlife resources are important in Southeast Asia, the capacity of governments to respond to wildlife disease threats, and of universities and other organizations to train future wildlife health professionals with an awareness of One Health approaches to EIDs in wildlife, varies considerably from country to country. The emergence of infectious diseases that threaten both human and animal urges countries in the region to strengthen capacity to prevent, detect, and respond to disease outbreaks in wildlife.
From 20 August to 25 August 2013, the workshop on how to write a grant, which is in the framework of the Vietnam One Health University Network (VOHUN), was held in Da Nang, Vietnam. The two facilitators from the workshop are Prof. Beth A. Virning - University of Minnesota, School of Public Health and Prof. Raymond Hyatt - Tuffs University School of Medicine.
Participatory risk assessment is a powerful tool to understand the risks of informally-marketed foods and to plan effective intervention strategies. This course uses a good mixture of teaching and hands-on styles. After learning overview of food borne disease issues, the course will move into useful participatory methods and risk analysis. In risk assessment, participants will learn about stochastic processes, how to build and run a risk model and how to conduct sensitivity analysis in @Risk. Later in the course, risk assessment using R will be introduced.
To our knowledge, no complete translation of water and sanitation terminology exists from English or other languages into Vietnamese. This is why we decided to collect water and sanitation terms in English from different sources. We then translated these terms into Vietnamese and provided them with systematized explanations, which went through a round of editing in order to create the present Vietnamese glossary of water and sanitation terms. The purpose of our work was to contribute to the synthesis of water and sanitation terminology in Vietnamese and to create a platform for exchange among people working in this field. Indeed, the present document is meant as a first step towards a consolidated English-Vietnamese glossary in the field of water and sanitation. We explicitly call for feedback from readers who use the present document in their work.
Applied interdisciplinary research is the key focus of this position, where the group leader shall establish and maintain a strong and internationally recognized team, working in close relationship with development actors and research partners in low and middle income countries. A strong interest in development cooperation and to communicate research results to a wide range of stakeholders from academia, business, government and civil society is a requirement. Experience with teaching and training of graduate level and working professionals is an asset.
Human excreta are rich in plant nutrients, so many farmers in Vietnam use them to fertilize their crops and in raising fish. But they also contain dangerous pathogens: bacteria, viruses, protozoa, and the eggs of intestinal parasites. Exposure can pose a health risk to farmers, their families, as well as consumers.

Urine is generally free of pathogens, so can be diluted and used as fertilizer directly. But the faeces have to be composted to kill the pathogens. Around one-fifth of households in Vietnam use a double-vault latrine that collects the faeces and allows them to decompose before spreading the resulting compost on their gardens and fields.

What are the benefits and risks of doing this? This issue of evidence for policy draws on research in Nghe An, Ha Nam and Nam Dinh in northern Vietnam to answer this question.

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