An operation on skin transplant to treat a burnt child at the National Burn Institute. Doctor Nguyen Nhu Lam keeps a close watch on patients at the Emergency Department. The room for research and manufacture of medicines at the National Burn Institute. Different herbal medicines for burn treatment manufactured by the National Burn Institute. The equipment for treatment by high-pressure oxygen method. Patient Dao Quoc Hung who suffered severe burns to over 90% of his body is recovering well. Experts of the National Burn Institute process the mesoderm of pig skin in service of burn treatment. Shocked, stunned and frightened are the common feelings of people with severe burns who are treated at the National Burn Institute. Each day the physicians at the Institute receive over 10 heavily burned patients who are sent from many parts of the country. Through the opaque glass window of the emergency room we saw many patients inside. They lay motionlessly, some with their complete body wrapped in bandages. At the surgery department, stretchers carrying patients were wheeled in and out constantly along the long corridor. Doctor Nguyen Nhu Lam, Head of the Emergency Department said these patients had to undergo skin transplants. Major-general, Professor Le Nam, Director of the National Burn Institute said that each year the Institute receives about 4,000 burn patients for treatment. It is estimated that out of every 100 burn patients, three or four people die and about 30 people suffer severe burn related traumas. With the number of burn victims on the rise, the Institute, the largest of its kind in Vietnam , has focused on upgrading the infrastructure and improving the equipment to meet the treatment demand. To meet the requirement on human resources, the Institute has trained a contingent of young physicians with high professional skills. Many of them have been sent to countries having advanced knowledge in burn treatment to attend training courses, such as Russia , Japan , the United States and France . One of the great achievements of the Institute over the past years has been its research into and production of different herbal medicines for burn treatment, such as B76, Becberin, Maduxin, Selapin, BT91, Eupoline and Damphomat. These medicines account for 70% of the burn medicines used at the Institute. The two most highly applauded medicines are Maduxin and Eupoline. The medical laboratory of the University of Oxford has tested and assessed Maduxin as a good medicine. Britain and Germany have placed orders for Eupoline which is much more effective than Maduxin. The Institute has applied biological technology in burn treatment. This is a new technique that many advanced burn hospitals around the world have been applying. Researchers at the Institute have successfully studied and put into use a series of biological products capable of curing patients with severe burns, such as frog skin, mesoderm of pig skin, dried placenta membrane, cologen membrane and polyxan membrane. The technology of culturing fibroblast and corneous cells are also applied. The researchers have a plan to study the technology of producing artificial skin in the future. Recently, the Institute has been assigned to establish the first bank of tissues in Vietnam , which provides products not only for the burn sector but also for other important sectors, including organ transplant. In 2007, the National Burn Institute recorded a great achievement by saving the life of two patients who suffered severe burns to over 90% of their body. Globally, this is a rare achievement in burn treatment. Dao Quoc Hung, a 28-year-old worker at the Vietnam Japan Mechanical Company in Hai Phong was burned by industrial alcohol with 92% of the body area affected. The doctors of the Institute operated on him nearly 30 times, applying the most advanced methods, such as continuously filtering the blood, high-pressure oxygen and skin cell transplants. According to Professor Le Nam, in the past, people with 60% of the body area severely burned would die, but now the Institute can save the lives of people who are burned over 95% of their body of which 70% is of high degree burn damage, helping reduce the death rate by 5-7% to 1.5%. The success of the National Burn Institute in recent years is testimony to the gigantic advancements of Vietnamese medicine, particularly in burn treatment which has caught up with the level of countries in the world with advance medicine. The Centre for special treatment of the National Burn Institute. “With the number of burn victims on the rise, the Institute, the largest of its kind in Vietnam , has focused on upgrading the infrastructure and improving the equipment to meet the treatment demand”.                                      (Major-general, Professor Le Nam, Director of the National Burn Institute)       Story by Thanh Hoa - Photos by Hoang Ha