The Hanoi People’s Committee recently appealed for support from local State agencies and organisations in fighting HIV/AIDS and assisting children affected directly or indirectly by HIV, a pressing issue currently facing the capital city.

Data shows that 245 in every 100,000 people in Hanoi are HIV positive, bringing the number of living HIV patients to 17,766. As many as 8,102 patients have progressed to full-blown AIDS while 4,452 others have died, which also resulted in a large number of children affected by HIV.

Hanoi is now among the 20 provinces and cities with the highest rates of HIV patients per 100,000 people, said Le Nhan Tuan – Director of the Hanoi Centre for HIV/AIDS Prevention.

He noted that despite a decline in the number of new HIV cases, the city has seen an increase in the rate of sexually transmitted HIV from 25 percent in 2010 to 36 percent last year.

Meanwhile, up to 22 percent of the new HIV cases in 2014 were detected among people hailing from other localities. The majority were taxi motorcyclists, waiters and massage workers with limited educational levels and highly vulnerable working environments.

The municipal People’s Committee will coordinate with the Ministry of Health to organise an HIV/AIDS assistance programme for patients with underprivileged backgrounds and children affected by the virus.

Hanoi aims to ensure access to antiretroviral (ARV) medicine for 70 percent of HIV-infected adults in 2015. It also targets to curb the rate of HIV transmission within 0.3 percent by 2020.-VNA