Nguyen Thi Thao from the Ha Noi Foreign Trade University has won first prize in the Alexandre Yersin youth award launched by the French charity organisation Le Liseron.

Winners of the Alexandre Yersin youth award in 2014 (Photo: VNA)

An award ceremony was held in Ha Noi on June 4 by the Viet Nam-France Friendship and Cooperation Organisation and the Le Liseron organisation.

Thao said she felt honoured to participate in the French essay contest, which helps Vietnamese students demonstrate their knowledge about French culture and people.

The contest was first organised in 2013 for under-23-year-old Vietnamese students to promote their understanding of the European country.

Established in 1999, Le Liseron has carried out a number of programmes and projects to support disadvantaged people in Viet Nam.

Born in Switzerland, Yersin (1863 - 1943) studied medicine at prestigious institutes in Switzerland, Germany and France.

He came to Viet Nam in 1891 and lived in Khanh Hoa’s Nha Trang city for more than half of a century. He was most remembered as the co-discoverer of the bacillus responsible for the bubonic plague in 1894.

He also discovered Liang Biang Plateau, the site for Da Lat city, in 1893 and founded the Nha Trang Pasteur Institute in 1895 and the Indochina Medicine School, which later became the Ha Noi Medical University and the Ha Noi University of Pharmacy.

In 2013, Yersin was posthumously conferred with the title of Vietnamese Honorary Citizen.

(Source: VNA)