A community-based HIV prevention project funded by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) was launched at a workshop held in the Mekong Delta province of An Giang on August 29.

To be implemented in 2013-2016 in the districts of Chau Phu, Phu Tan, Cho Moi and Thoai Son, the project will focus on aiding HIV/AIDS patients in accessing care, treatment and preventive services.

Its objectives are also to provide management and medical treatment for about 980 people living with HIV, sex workers, drug addicts, and gays and lesbians at their home as well as in clinics, hospitals, preventive medical centres and HIV prevention centres every year.

As part of the project, training courses will be also organised to provide medical workers with preventive skills and teach them how to effectively take care HIV-infected persons, thus further aiding the national HIV-AIDS prevention programmes.

At the workshop, Bui Duc Duong, Deputy Director of the Department of HIV/AIDS Prevention under the Ministry of Health underlined the need to raise public awareness of HIV prevention, expressing his hope the project will be performed effectively in the locality.

The project is hoped to benefit a large number of people living with HIV/AIDS in An Giang, while further fostering efforts to prevent transmissions in communities.

Along with An Giang, similar projects are carried out in Ho Chi Minh City and Can Tho city from now to May 2016, in expectation of providing preventive services and medical treatment to about 6,000 people who are HIV/AIDS patients and those at high risk of infecting the deadly virus every year.-VNA