Hanoi has one more facility providing PrEP service for HIV prevention

A medical worker tests blood samples (Photo: VNA)

Hanoi (VNA) – A facility
providing – was inaugurated at
the at No.1 Ton That Tung Street, Hanoi, on
May 22.

The Hanoi Medical University
Hospital is one of the eight medical establishments in Hanoi to launch this
service in 2019 with the support of the Administration for HIV/AIDS Control
under the Health Ministry and the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention
in Vietnam.

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.

As of the end of
2018, the number of alive HIV carriers in Vietnam was estimated at 250,000,
with 10,000 new infections found a year.

It
is alarming that while HIV infections are reduced
significantly in groups with high risks such as drugs 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
nationwide, after Thailand.-VNA