IPOPI’s awareness raising activities in South East Asia continue, most recently with our 3^rd Vietnamese Doctors and Patients’ Meeting, following the 1^st and 2^nd meetings in 2015 and 2017. This two-day meeting took place on November 23-24, in Hotel Nikko Saigon, Ho Chi Minh, and was organised in close collaboration with Children’s Hospital 1. It was a well visited and successful meeting, hosting 100 doctors on the first meeting day as well as 40 PID patients and parents during the second day.

The first day was focused towards educating healthcare professionals and medical students about primary immunodeficiencies (PIDs). This symposium featured both international and national speakers who provided various interesting lectures on key PID diagnosis and clinical management, with topics such as The A to Z on PIDs, Molecular diagnosis and flow cytometry and Vaccination and PIDs, among others. This day also featured a session where local doctors were introduced by international experts to present their case studies, creating a good interactive environment. This was an appreciated section allowing for knowledge exchange between the international and local doctors. 

The second day was devoted to patient education and welcomed patients and parents from both south and north Vietnam, among them active members from IPOPI’s Vietnamese national member organisation, VietPIPs.This day offeredsessions on What are PIDs, a comparison of IVIG and SCIG as well as an enlightening Q&A session with IPOPI MAP Chair, Dr Nizar Mahlaoui, and Vice-Chair, Prof Martin van Hagen. During this session,  patients and parents provided the experts with many interesting and difficult questions. This fruitful meeting day also offered national updates from Vietnam, Malaysia and Australia as well as an awareness workshop where the participants brainstormed about a campaign for World PI Week 2020.

IPOPI is grateful to have had the chance to return to Vietnam for the third time and to see the progress that has been made in the country, with 250 patients diagnosed since 2015. We trust that the devoted Vietnamese doctors, nurses and patients taking part in this meeting will continue to improve PID diagnosis and care in Vietnam.

This meeting was made possible thanks to the support of Kedrion.