A new health campaign has been launched in the provinces of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam to provide deprived women with free gynaecological check-ups and cancer treatment.
The programme hopes to help 150,000 to 200,000 women in the country's 32 southern provinces.
According to the Ministry of Health an estimated 3,000 women are at risk of breast cancer each year, 2,550 at risk of cervical cancer and 1,000 at risk of ovarian cancer.
Leading hospitals in Ho Chi Minh City including Tu Du Hospital, Hung Vuong Hospital and Oncology Hospital, will run training courses for doctors working in provincial hospitals and health centres.
They will work alongside them to offer women with cancer free surgery and examinations.
Pham Viet Thanh, deputy head of the Ministry of Health's Mother-Child Health Department, said the scheme would help doctors as well as women by providing them with new training opportunities.
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