The HCMC Pasteur Institute is a regional Public Health Institution reporting directly to the National Ministry of Health (MOH). The CDC project primarily supports the government of Vietnams ability to build a sustainable response to its national HIV/AIDS epidemic by strengthening its laboratory infrastructure, supporting epidemiological surveillance, and strengthening quality management capacity for preventive medicine staff.

The Pasteur Institute is well established and is a key institution with a mandate and legal authority from the MOH to supervise and coordinate all activities to prevent and control communicable diseases including HIV/AIDS in the 20 provincial AIDS centers (PACs) and the 20 preventive health centers in southern Vietnam. The target populations served include HIV-positive patients as well as those at risk for acquiring HIV.

The strategies to become progressively more cost efficient include limiting the amount of laboratory equipment purchased and integrating the purchase of reagents into the routine activities of the Pasteur Institute laboratory.

Laboratory Improvements in testing quality will be monitored and evaluated through Quality Control of the tests performed in the laboratories through the use of Internal Quality Control and External Quality Assessment results. Furthermore, the capacity building programs will monitor and evaluate the trainings by supporting the national Vietnam Leadership and Management Training Program evaluation framework. The framework will capture the progress and successes of the applied projects from the training.

The HIV/AIDS Department of the Pasteur Institute of Ho Chi Minh City (PI HCMC) is a national level laboratory supporting southern Vietnam with the following responsibilities: 1) Surveillance of HIV infection for southern Vietnam; 2) Oversight direction of HIV/AIDS labs in 20 southern provinces, including training, continuing education, assay certification, quality control, laboratory assessment, and technical assistance; 3) HIV/AIDS diagnosis and follow-up of patient, virologic testing, CD4 testing and genotyping for HIV-1 resistance; 4) Research activities on HIV/AIDS pathogenesis, treatment, prevention, implementation/standardization of new lab techniques for HIV/AIDS. PEPFAR has supported the following PI HCMC activities in the past: 1) Evaluation of HIV Commercial Test Kits for use in Vietnam; 2) Development of national serum bank; 3) Strengthening of competence of provincial lab staff in the area of HIV Serological Diagnostics; 4) Conducting Quality Assessments for Provincial Laboratories in southern Vietnam; 5) Strengthening of Capacity for Immunology Platform (C4 testing); 6) Provision of QA for laboratory testing related to Early Infant Diagnosis and Viral Load. COP12 funds will be used to continue support for those activities listed above along with the following new activities: 1) Support to select HIV/AIDS laboratories to obtain international accreditation (ISO), including provision of advanced quality management knowledge for provincial and general hospital laboratories in the South. 2) Pipette calibration service. 3) Post-market evaluation of HIV Commercial Test Kits for use in Vietnam. 4) Support for improved HIV testing at provincial laboratories through training (theory and hands- on) and QA (IQC and EQA panels).

Collaboration will continue with the Hanoi School of Public Health (HSPH) to enhance the quality of epidemiology training and presentation of courses to the southern region of Vietnam. In 2011 3 workshops in the field of Epidemiology/Biostatistics were conducted in Hanoi by HSPH and the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Collaboration with the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology (NIHE) to strengthen the national sentinel surveillance system will continue training, quality assurance, and improved use of surveillance data. Funds will be used for field travel to conduct quality assurance. In collaboration with NIHE, technical capacity will be developed within the HIV/AIDS surveillance department at PI HCMC and PACs around second generation surveillance. Funds will be used for holding workshops for the PACs to apply epidemiological principles for collecting and interpreting provincial data and for attendance at conferences for select staff with accepted abstracts. Integration of STI, hepatitis, and other HIV-related disease surveillance into existing cross-sectional surveys will be developed by HCMC PI working with NIHE to coordinate these related disease surveillance activities. Funds will be used for testing specimens and for quality assurance.

In collaboration with NIHE, CDC GAP Atlanta, and CDC Vietnam, PI HCMC will conduct incidence surveillance to obtain incidence rates among most at risk groups for measuring the extent to which HIV transmission is occurring and provide evidence of intervention impact. PI HCMC recently supported the validation of two tests for recent infection (TRI) and will apply these assays on stored blood specimens of multiple existing cross-sectional studies. Funds will be used for specimen collection and training, quality assurance visits, and consumable supplies for laboratory testing

Building on seven years of support from Hanoi School of Public Health to conduct regional quality improvement and project management courses, PI will establish an autonomous training center under the Vietnam Leadership and Management Training Program (VLMTP). While they will continue to receive direct TA from HSPH to conduct QI and Program Management trainings, PI will be responsible for coordinating and providing trainers for these courses. Furthermore, PI will be responsible for the quality of the training sessions by providing refresher training courses for the trainers and developing a monitoring tool to assess the improvement of skills and knowledge of trainees. Additional funds will also be used to coordinate activities with HSPH including: 1) The monitoring and evaluation tool to be used to track successes and progress of applied projects from the trainings; 2) PI will be responsible for linking course participants to the national VLMTP database. They will also actively coordinate, organize and participate in alumni network activities; 3) PI will coordinate coaching/mentoring workshops with HSPH to develop and implement workshops directly aimed at building the capacity of trainers to provide coaching and mentoring as a key component of the Quality Improvement course success. 4) PI will be actively involved in a joint effort aimed at building capacity and awareness of quality improvement activities among PAC and PMC leadership. 5) PI will work in coordination with HSPH, Danang PMC and other provincial training centers to update course curriculum for QI and Project Management.