Disease prevention fund to help solve urgent public health issues: MoH

The Ministry of Health (MoH) has proposed setting up a disease prevention fund within the draft Law on Disease Prevention.

The fund aims to support the resolution of urgent issues that may arise due to pandemics, support proactive disease prevention and provide funds for preventative measures that the State budget does not guarantee or support.

According to the draft law, the disease prevention fund is an off-budget State financial fund with legal entity status, its own seal and separate account, established by the Prime Minister, who also approves its charter and operational regulations.

The fund will be exempt from taxes and State budget contributions as prescribed by law.

It will be formed from the financial sources including charter capital allocated from the State budget; annual additional allocations from the budget based on balancing capacity; deduction of a portion of revenue from excise tax on products harmful to health or mandatory contributions from producers and importers of products harmful to health; voluntary and lawful donations or contributions from domestic and international businesses, organisations and individuals; funding from the Tobacco Harm Prevention Fund and other lawful revenue sources as prescribed by law.

The mandatory contributions must be declared and paid together with excise tax by the respective producers or importers directly into the Fund’s account.

The Government will detail the specific mechanisms for these provisions.

According to the draft, the purpose of the disease prevention fund is to support the resolution of urgent public health issues caused by potential pandemics, proactive disease prevention activities, provide funding for disease prevention tasks not fully covered, supported, or guaranteed by the State budget, and create resources to ensure sustainable financial support for disease prevention activities.

As outlined in the draft, the fund is non-profit, must preserve its charter capital and is responsible for covering its own management costs.

The fund is required to conduct revenue and expenditure operations, settlements and publicise financial, asset and accounting activities in accordance with the law.

It is also subject to inspections, audits by State financial authorities and the State Audit Office, and oversight by the Vietnam Fatherland Front and the community.

The Fund must operate with transparency, thrift, efficiency and for the right purposes in accordance with the law.

The draft also states that any surplus from the fund at the end of a financial year may be carried over to the following year for continued use.

The Government is tasked with regulating the management and use of the fund.

The Ministry of Health is drafting the Law on Disease Prevention to tackle the issue of control of infectious diseases, improve prevention, reduce the rate of diseases in the community, and limit disability and premature death due to non-communicable diseases.

According to the ministry, the development of a new law with a comprehensive scope, is necessary to overcome shortcomings and inadequacies in the work of protecting, caring for and improving people's health to meet practical requirements in the new era.

The draft law further proposes regulations on information, education and communication on disease prevention, prevention and control of infectious diseases, prevention and control of non-communicable diseases, mental health disorders and other risk factors, nutrition in disease prevention and conditions to ensure disease prevention./.