The information was announced at a workshop jointly held by the Vietnam Administration for HIV/AIDS Control (VAAC) under the Ministry of Health and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the USAID PATH Healthy Markets project in Ho Chi Minh City on November 3.
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Associate Prof. Dr. Nguyen Hoang Long, Director of the VAAC speaks at the event. |
Associate Prof. Dr. Nguyen Hoang Long, Director of the VAAC, said Vietnam has achieved remarkable achievements in preventing and controlling HIV/AIDS when the rate of HIV carriers in the community has been controlled below 0.3 percent, and the number of new cases and deaths from AIDS has also gradually decreased every year.
However, he noted that the rate of those tested positive for HIV among men who have sex with men (MSM) have rapidly increased in recent years, to over 10 percent at present from only about 2 percent in 2010.
Vietnam is one of the first countries in the world to apply the PrEP program. It is providing the service for more than 10,000 customers in the country.
PrEP helps to reduce between 95-98 percent of the risk of infecting HIV in the community, Long said, adding that the community's response to PrEP has been very positive.
Vietnam is striving to have about 30 percent or 60,000 people in the MSM community using PrEP by 2025, and the rate is hoped to increase to 40 percent by 2030, Long said.
Lopa Basu, a senior technical advisor from the USAID, attributed the success of the program to strong global campaigns and diversification of services, saying that the PrEP service has been providing in public, private and community clinics.
The USAID is committed to continue cooperation with Vietnam in realizing its AIDS elimination goal by 2030, she said.
Since 2015, the World Health Organization (WHO) has strongly recommended PrEP as an additional prevention choice for people at substantial risk of HIV.
The program was launched for the first time in Vietnam in early 2017 and now it is implemented in 26 provinces and cities nationwide.
Source: VNA