Assoc.Prof.Dr. Nguyen Dung, Vice Chairman of Thua Thien Hue Provincial People's Committee; Prof.Dr. Cao Ngoc Thanh, Rector of Hue University College of Medicine and Pharmacy; Prof. Piero Cappuccinelli, University of Sassari (Italy) - Honorary Professor of Hue University awarded the certificates of Master of Biomedical Technology to 8 students of the third cohort.

Assoc.Prof.Dr. Nguyen Dung awarded the Certificate of Merit of the Chairman of Thua Thien Hue People's Committee to Prof. Piero Cappuccinelli in appreciation of his contribution to Thua Thien Hue Province.

The Carlo Urbani Center Project aimed to improve training capacity, research and patient referral to better control acute respiratory infections in Central Vietnam. The 3 phases of the project have been implemented for almost 10 years from 2007 to the end of 2016. The achievements of the project included the successful construction and effective operation of a Biology Lab of Microbiology Department of the College of Medicine and Pharmacy for many years. The project also built emergency resuscitation facilities with special isolation rooms at Hue University Hospital. The two facilities have been put into operation for teaching, scientific research and patient care services by a CoMP team of scientists, doctors and staff.

The project supported the training of health workers in the detection, care and surveillance of respiratory infections in the central provinces through 16 short training courses for physicians and health workers at the provincial and district clinic levels, in 9 provinces in Central Vietnam from Ha Tinh to Khanh Hoa. Many young staff of the College of Medicine and Pharmacy could attend short-term specialized training at hospitals, universities and research institutes in Italy, Canada and China. In particular, with the support of the Carlo Urbani Project and the University of Sassari, up to now, 19 faculty members of HUCoMP have completed doctoral programs in Italy in the field of Medical Biotechnology.

Regarding scientific activities, the project also successfully organized international conferences on new and recurrent respiratory infections at HUCoMP with the participation of leading experts in this field around the world from Italy, Canada, Great Britain, China, World Health Organization and many medical institutes in Vietnam; Fully or partially supported a number of studies on viral respiratory infections, drug-resistant TB infection, Helicobacter pylori infection, genital infections, etc., by graduate students.

Phase 3 of the project ran a joint master program in medical biotechnology with 05 cohorts, 46 students. On this occasion, the College of Medicine and Pharmacy and University of Sassari held a graduation ceremony and awarded certificates of master degrees to 8 students of Cohort 3 and opened Cohort 5 with 10 students.

Speaking at the ceremony, Mr. Martino Melli, Director of the Italian Development Cooperation Agency at the Italian Embassy in Hanoi, highly appreciated the achievements of the project and expressed his desire to continue other cooperation projects with Hue University College of Medicine and Pharmacy in the years to come.

On the same day, the College of Medicine and Pharmacy in collaboration with the professors from Italy, Japan and Germany held a conference on tropical medicine. The reports included: Research results on infectious diseases in Central Vietnam (2012 - 2015) by Prof. Masami Sugamata, Tokyo Metropolitan University, Japan; Research results on female genital infections in Thua Thien Hue province by Prof. Pier Luigi Fiori, University of Sassari, Italy; Snake bite and tropical diseases not yet noticed in Laos and Vietnam by Prof. Joerg Blessmann, Institute of Tropical Medicine Bernhard Nocht, Germany.