WELCOME
The Ireland Vietnam Blood Borne Virus Initiative (IVVI) is a partnership between University College Dublin (UCD) and Hanoi’s National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology (NIHE). The programme, which began in 2007, aims to develop capacity in clinical and diagnostic virology in Vietnam through infrastructure development and specialised training programmes.
The concept was developed by Professor William Hall who is Director of the UCD National Virus Reference Laboratory (UCD-NVRL) and the UCD Centre for Research in Infectious Diseases (UCD-CRID) in response to the significant morbidity and mortality associated with blood borne viral (BBV) infections in Vietnam. Professor Hall is partnered in the IVVI by Professor Hien Tran Nguyen, the Director of NIHE and Dr. Lan Anh Thi Nguyen , Head of the Laboratory of Molecular Biology and Immunology at NIHE and is Head of the Laboratory of Molecular Diagnostics in the IVVI Building.
The initiative which was funded by Irish Aid www.dci.gov.ie and the Atlantic Philanthropies. www.atlanticphilanthropies.org has created a custom-built laboratory building (IVVI Building) which is furnished with state of the art equipment for virus diagnostics and research in the grounds of NIHE. Recently the facility has been named the Laboratory of Molecular Diagnostics to reflect its unique expertise.
