The SVA aims to establish a long-term partnership on a mutual benefits and needs ground with a sustainable financial base outside development cooperation.

The SVA will  meet with strategic cooperation partners to define areas within animal health for a potential partnership during a fact-finding tour to Vietnam in October 2009. Potential actors on the Vietnamese side includes the Department of Animal Health, the National Institute of Veterinary Research, the National Centre for Veterinary Diagnosis in Hanoi and the Diagnostic Laboratory in HCM City within and under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. An exchange of experts from collaborating Swedish and Vietnamese partners is planned for spring/summer 2010.

Sweden has an internationally very good animal health care and status standard, partly due to favourable geographic conditions, but mainly due to a long tradition of efficient and strategic work with animal health care.

Vietnam, with its fast growing economy and middle income class, has seen a tremendous increase in the demand for meat, egg and milk during the last decade. During the same period, the country has seriously been affected by outbreaks of contagious animal diseases, in particular bird flue.

On a long-term basis it is expected that the Vietnamese partners will gain access to a modern and efficient diagnostics system and disease control, and thereby a better animal health status in general and more efficient cattle production. The risk of spreading diseases from animals to humans is expected to decrease by this. For Sweden, the partnership is expected lead to better knowledge concerning exotic diseases, and a better preparedness to handle future pandemic diseases which is also important for Vietnam.