HCM City provides free HIV exposure prevention medicine to community

PrEP allows people who do not have HIV but are at substantial risk of infection to prevent HIV by taking a pill every day (Source: nld.com.vn)

HCM City (VNA) – The Ministry of Health’s
Department of on June 12 delivered the first
free pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) medicine to
people with high risk of in Ho Chi Minh City.

This is part of a programme
to deliver the medicine at private medical facilities, marking an important
milestone in the engagement of private clinics in HIV/AIDS prevention and
control efforts in Vietnam.

Galant general clinic was the
first private facility to involve in the programme. From June 2019, PrEP,
funded by the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief – (), will be provided to the community.

PrEP
allows people who do not have HIV but are at substantial risk of infection to
prevent HIV by taking a pill every day, as part of a combination HIV prevention
strategy. When taken correctly, the treatment would reduce the risk of HIV
infection via unsafe sex by 90 percent or via injection drug use by 70 percent.

The service helps ease the dependence on physical measures
to prevent HIV transmission such as condom or safe syringe.

Earlier on May
22, a facility providing PrEP for HIV prevention was inaugurated at
the Hanoi Medical University Hospital.

Currently,
Vietnam has 230,000 people living with HIV, 20 percent of whom are in Ho Chi
Minh City.

It is
alarming that while HIV infections are reduced significantly in groups with
high risks such as drug addicts (from 29-30 percent to 9-10 percent) and sex
workers (from 5 percent to 3.4 percent), the rate is rising in the group of men
having sex with men (from 7.4 percent to 11.4 percent), according to 2018
statistics.

It is
estimated that Vietnam has around 174,000 men having sex with men (MSM) aged
from 15-49, including over 30,000 in Hanoi (or 17.5 percent).

PrEP
was first piloted in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City in 2016. The Ministry of Health
made it part of the direction for HIV/AIDS care and treatment in 2017 and
passed a plan to roll out the service for the 2018-2020 in 2018 with the
provision of free antiretroviral drugs for HIV treatment.

At
present, over 2,000 people are using the service.

As
scheduled, nine cities and provinces will supply the service in 2019, and the
figure will be raised to 11 in 2020, with the goal of having 7,300 users.

Vietnam
is the second country in Asia to launch PrEP service nationwide, after
Thailand. -VNA