Hanoi (AsiaNews) – Vietnam’s Health Ministry reported that as of September of this year, 180,312 people had been infected with HIV/AIDS. Of these, 42,339 have died. Among them, 70.8 are men and 29.2 per cent are women. Most involved are people in the 20-39 age group (82 per cent). Children under 15 represent 3 per cent of the total.
The figures were made public during a seminar held in Hanoi on 1-3 December that was organised by Vietnam’s National Committee for the Prevention and Control of HIV/AIDS. More than a thousand people took part in the event.
The US delegation appealed to international governmental and non-governmental organisations to provide more help to develop treatment and prevention programmes.
The United States is a major contributor to the fight against HIV-AIDS. Since 2004, the US government has provided US$ 400 million to fight and prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS in Vietnam through the President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief in Vietnam (PEPFAR).
Vietnam’s Deputy Prime Minister Truong Vinh Trong, who chairs the National Committee for the Prevention and Control of HIV/AIDS, backed the US delegation.
“The Vietnam government expects international non-government organisations (INGOs), people of other countries and Vietnamese citizens to continue to help Vietnam prevent and fight against HIV/AIDS,” he said
PEPFAR’s programmes are designed to raise awareness in the population about treatment and prevention.
In Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnamese Catholics have opened shelters for people living with HIV/AIDS who are often ostracised and forced out of mainstream society.
Local churches and ordinary people are also involved in helping some 5,000 HIV-AIDS infected children who contracted the virus from their parents, and are often forced to live a hard life, discriminated and abandoned to themselves.
In the aforementioned seminar, Vietnam was praised for the successful treatment and prevention programmes it has pursued in the past 20 years. However, the road ahead is still long.