Southern Vietnam’s main swine-flu testing facility suspended testing Thursday, said HCMC Health Department official Phan Van Nghiem, arguing that not much would change as tests could be performed elsewhere.

Pasteur is now waiting for more funds from the Ministry of Health and must also complete all necessary bidding procedures to buy more influenza A (H1N1) virus biological reagents, the institute’s Director General Tran Ngoc Huu said in a note sent to 20 provincial and city health departments Wednesday.

In a telephone interview with Tuoi Tre, Nguyen Huy Nga, head of the ministry’s Preventive Health and Environment Department, said the institute had told the ministry about the suspension, saying that suppliers had refused to advance the testing agents as the institute was now in debt to them.

According to Huu, the debt for vaccines and biological reagents is now worth over VND4 billion (US$224,177). But he refused to name the suppliers and would not say how many samples were currently waiting for testing.

“Now they have to pay up before buying more,” Nga said, noting that even once the debt was paid the bidding process would still be required under regulations.

The ministry has provided the institute with VND1.5 billion (US$84,066) to buy more the testing agents, according to Huu, who added that it was still unknown when tests would be resumed as new supplies would not be available until the time-consuming bidding procedures were completed.

Conflicting opinions

Huu and Nga said the halt would not affect flu treatment in Vietnam much, as the health ministry had allowed hospitals to give patients suspected of being infected with H1N1 the antiviral drug Tamiflu without awaiting test results.

But not all officials from southern preventive health centers felt the same way.

Tests can help identified new outbreaks, allowing for better control of epidemics, said Cao Trong Nguong, director of the Dong Nai Province Preventive Health Center.

The suspension may have unexpected consequences as the disease continues to spread quickly through local communities, Nguong added.

The director of a provincial hospital who spoke on condition of anonymity said that although the facility was treating for H1N1 once patients showed swine flu symptoms, it would be difficult for doctors to re-diagnose problems if patients did not respond to proper swine-flu treatment.

The Da Nang Health Department, the central region’s sole influenza A (H1N1) testing center, also announced the suspension of all tests last month as it had also ran out of biological reagents to diagnose the virus.

Ly Ngoc Kinh, director general of the Medical Treatment Department at the Ministry of Health, had previously warned that Vietnam was about to exhaust its stock of testing agents.

While it awaits new supplies that will take at least two months to arrive, the Institute of Biotechnology is cooperating with the Pasteur Institute in Ho Chi Minh City to develop locally-made reagents.

However, the locally produced materials won’t be introduced before January at the earliest.

Since the disease emerged in Vietnam in March, it has affected over 9,000 people nationwide, killing 16, the latest of which died Tuesday.

Source: Thanh Nien, Tuoi Tre