DOI: 10.5061/dryad.g4f4qrfz3
title: Integrated specimen referral system pilot in three provinces of Vietnam for human and animal health

description: 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
 health facilities in three provinces. The customized service for specimen
 transport provided by a courier company was the predominant mode of
 specimen transport in the established system. Proper packaging materials
 and 300 incident handling kits were provided. Eight standard operating
 procedures and one national guideline were established, and 28 training
 courses were organized for human and animal health facility staff and the
 courier company in three provinces and relevant hub locations to ensure
 proper specimen packaging and transport practices. During the pilot
 implementation, over 90% of 13,934 specimens were transported within the
 targeted lead time. The developed SRS system addressed gaps and provided
 effective integrated and multisectoral specimen referral services for
 various types of disease specimens in Vietnam to strengthen the diagnosis
 and surveillance of human and animal infectious diseases.
description: 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.
description: # 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 Center for Veterinary Diagnosis, and other veterinary testing organizations. After compiling the data into an Excel file, it will be used to analyze the total number of packages and specimens delivered through the specimen referral system for both human and animal specimens, along with the specimen transport time for each specimen. Each package will be compared with the initially set criteria of the system to determine whether it was delivered on time or not. For the transportation of specimens intended for routine public health surveillance purposes, the project applied two lead time thresholds with the aim of minimizing transit time. The first threshold requires delivery within 24 hours after pickup for shipment orders placed before 12:00 p.m. The second threshold mandates delivery within 30 hours after pickup for orders placed after 12:00 p.m. Abbreviations used in the dataset: 1\. ASTAC: Aquaculture Surveying, Testing and Accreditation Center 2\. CDC: Center for Disease Control 3\. MHC: Medical Health Center 4\. NAFIQAD: National Agro-Forestry-Fisheries Quality Assurance Department 5\. NCVD: National Center for Veterinary Diagnosis 6\. NIHE: National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology 7\. PIHCM: Pasteur Institute in Ho Chi Minh City 8\. PINT: Pasteur Institute in Nha Trang 9\. RAHO: Regional Animal Health Organization 10\. RIA: Research Institute for Aquaculture 11\. SDAH: Sub-Department of Animal Health Notes: a. Cut-off time group refers to the pre-12 p.m set (1) and post-12 p.m set (2) b. distances under 50 km is abbreviated as &lt;50 km c. distances from 50-100 km is abbreviated as 50-100 km d. distances over 100 km is abbreviated as &gt;100 km