Topic: Managing Secondary Effects of Disease Outbreaks
Country: Vietnam
Delegate Name: Amanda Margolis
School: Roeper School
Topic page: background guide and all position papers All Vietnam position papers GLIMUN 2016 committees
Developing countries such as Viet Nam are often more likely to experience outbreaks of disease. They also are more likely to be unable to cope with the aftermath of these diseases. The WHO and the US CIA classify Viet Nam’s risk for disease as “very high”. Currently, heavy border control has been implemented to contain the spread of avian flu into Vietnam from neighboring nations like China, Cambodia, and Laos. While border controls may help to limit initial spread, it does little to help effects as a result of disease.
Vietnam has adopted the “One Health” approach to disease control in order to limit cross-species transfer of diseases, primarily virus-born, usually from avian sources, but also from swine and other animals that are human food sources. Vietnamese public health officials have increasingly been able to convince village farmers to abandon traditional poultry and animal rearing practices that had these creatures sharing living space with humans, to separate animal living spaces more commonly used in the developed world. Vietnam has pioneered this health-care approach to end cross-species contamination and is now recognized as a global leader in this method.
Another ongoing disease problem that Vietnam has had to contend with is the effects of “Agent Orange.” This was a US broad-spectrum herbicide widely applied during the Indochina War from the 1960’s to the mid-1970’s. Huge areas of Vietnam had this lethal poison applied, which killed plants, fish, reptiles, birds, animals, and humans, and caused massive birth defects in both animal species and humans. Many thousands of square kilometers of Vietnam were affected, continuing to produce poisonous plant and animal life, and entering the human food chain.
These diseases have lingering effects, even after they have run their course. For one, economic problems arise when outbreaks interfere with people’s ability to work. Physically being unable work due to sickness, or because they have to care for sick family, coupled with the money needed to keep the sick alive can cause serious poverty. A second problem arises in that outbreaks interfere with people's ability to get an education. Disease causes inability for people to attend school, and this then increases illiteracy rate. In addition, disease transmitted by water can make water unsafe to drink, and so it leads to a problem in clean water
In order to help manage this, actions can be take to shorten disease outbreaks and therefore limit their effects. Expanding research facilities for disease can help make cures more accessible to the general public.
Viet Nam wishes to counter effects of these disease outbreaks through ways to prevent and shorten contagion, and thus allow developing nations to turn their attention to further development. By doing this, nations will have an easier time reaching their full potential, and thus be able to give more back to their citizens as well as contribute to the global economy.
