Ethnic women and children in Minh Hoa district, Quang Binh province. (Photo: VNA)The app named Me Con Vui Khoe (Happy Mother and Child) or MCH247 was jointly developed by the Department of Maternal and Child Health under the Ministry of Health (MoH) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) with sponsorship of the Japanese Government.
Of note, it is accessible to people of ethnic groups residing in rural, remote and mountainous areas.
The app is among remote health care interventions to ensure that people can access undisrupted reproductive and sexual health care information and services in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.
It had been piloted in the northern provinces and other localities, especially regions inhabited by ethnic people and migrant workers.
Deputy Director of the Maternal and Child Health Department Tran Dang Khoa underlined that the MCH47 app will help medical workers, notably midwives at remote and mountainous areas, provide their patients with inclusive information and services.
On the occasion, the UNFPA also presented the Department of Maternal and Child Health with a set of devices to hold online conferences and medical training, which is essential for remote healthcare.
UNFPA Representative in Vietnam Naomi Kitahara pledged that the UN body will continue to assist the MoH in managing the app so that it is accessible to everyone, particularly ethnic people, towards the target of Vietnam with zero preventable maternal death.
A 2020 report of the UNFPA estimated that maternal death may surge by 44-65 percent due to the adverse impacts of COVID-19, which could reverse Vietnam’s achievements in the past 20 years and pose risks to the realisation of the Sustainable Development Goals.
Vietnam was the ninth country in the world in terms of smartphone users in 2020 with 63.1 percent of the population owning the device. Almost 70 percent of the country’s population were internet users as of January 2020.
Another study conducted by the UNFPA in 60 poorest ethnic communes in 2022 indicated that 55 percent of ethnic minority women own cell phones and 41 percent connect to the Internet with their phones./.
VNA
