Hall’s Ireland Vietnam Blood-Borne Virus Initiative Provides a Model for the Global Virus Network

Many organisations that look to the future of their professions have reached a similar conclusion: today and in the future, practitioners need to collaborate, learn from eachother, and train the next generation to expand on their work.

This conclusion is certainly true in the field of virology, and Dr. William Hall who founded the Ireland Vietnam Blood Borne Virus Initiative, has been inspiring collaboration since this programme started in 2007.

The Ireland Vietnam Blood-Borne Virus Initiative (IVVI) was developed in response to the significant problems arising from blood borne virus infections in Vietnam.Specifically it was to “develop expertise and capacity in clinical and diagnostic virology” and, ultimately, “to advise and inform health policy on the preventionand treatment of important virus infections in Vietnam.” The IVVI is a collaboration between the University College Dublin-National Virus Reference Laboratory (UCDNVRL) in Dublin and the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology (NIHE) in Hanoi.

The programme, which is financially supported by Irish Aid and The Atlantic Philanthropies, has three major goals:

• infrastructure development, 
• training programmes, and 
• a “proof of principle” component.

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University College Dublin is an Atlantic grantee through the Population Health Programme in Viet Nam.