Nearly 13,000 HIV carriers benefit from PrEP programme

HCM
City (VNA) – Nearly 13,000 nationwide have been provided with  (PrEP) service over the last
two years, helping to control HIV infections in the community.

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.

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 . 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
programme 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 realising its AIDS elimination
goal by 2030, she said.

Since 2015, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has strongly
recommended PrEP as an additional prevention choice for people at substantial
risk of HIV.

The programme was launched for the first time in Vietnam in
early 2017 and now it is implemented in 26 provinces and cities nationwide./.