Integrated specimen referral system pilot in three provinces of Vietnam for human and animal health

Standardized specimen referral with proper packaging and transportation management is crucial in ensuring biosafety and biosecurity. USAID’s Infectious Disease Detection and Surveillance (IDDS) project supported the development of an integrated and multisectoral specimen referral system (SRS) in Vietnam that applies the One Health approach. Informed by assessments of current specimen referral activities across the human and animal health sectors, the development of an SRS in Vietnam was divided into three phases: design, pilot, and evaluation. The pilot was implemented between June 2022 and December 2023 in the three provinces of Thai Nguyen (North), Binh Dinh (Central), and Dong Thap (South), Vietnam. Critical aspects of the SRS under evaluation included specimen delivery time and compliance with biosafety and biosecurity standards in packaging and transportation. The SRS was established with customized services for transporting potentially infectious specimens for 78 human and animal ..., The SRS was established with customized services for transporting potentially infectious specimens for 78 human and animal health facilities in three provinces of Vietnam (Dong Thap, Binh Dinh and Thai Nguyen). Data were collected from Nhat Tin logistics company's transport database about the time of pick up and the time of delivery for each specimen package, and also from each health and animal health referring and referral facility in the three pilot provinces, regarding the number of packages and specimens transported. Subsequently, the data were combined into one file. Afterward, the data were cleaned and verified to ensure accuracy before analysis., , # Integrated Specimen Referral System in Vietnam: Pilot Evaluation for Biosafety and Timeliness

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.g4f4qrfz3](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.g4f4qrfz3)

The dataset comprises data collected from health and animal health facilities in pilot provinces, including information on the date and time of specimen dispatch and receipt, the total number of delivered packages, and the total number of specimens in each package. In the human health sector, specimen transport occurs from district-level facilities such as medical health centers and district general hospitals to provincial laboratories like the Provincial Center for Disease Control and Provincial General Hospital. Subsequently, specimens that cannot be tested provincially are transported to central laboratories such as Regional Research Institutes. In the animal health sector, specimen transport takes place from provincial sub-departments of animal health to regional animal health organizations, the National ...