Prof Mai’s leadership helped establish Vietnam’s National Influenza Surveillance System (NISS). As director of the National Influenza Center and a GISRS member, she updates influenza data for WHO’s FluNet, shares seasonal flu strains with WHO centers for vaccine development, and led the discovery that avian influenza A (H5N1) caused human infections in Vietnam. Her work upgraded lab capacity, monitored the influenza network, and built partnerships with animal health researchers.
She has authored or co-authored 155 publications in top journals like Nature, NEJM, Science, The Lancet, and EID. From 2009-2017, she served on the NAFOSTED Scientific Committee and advised health and science ministries.
In early 2020, Prof. Mai’s team developed COVID-19 diagnostics in Vietnam before WHO/CDC protocols, isolated SARS-CoV-2, and collaborated with Japanese and UK researchers on viral sequencing, contributing many sequences to GISAID. Her team described SARS-CoV-2 in Vietnam across six papers in 2021.
Prof. Mai leads an all-women team awarded the 2019 Vietnamese Kovalevskaia Award for influenza research. In 2021, she was named one of 100 Asian Scientists by Asian Scientist magazine for her contributions to global health challenges, including COVID-19 prevention.
