Vietnamplus

Vietnam hopes to provide anti-retroviral (ARV) treatment to about 160,000 people living with HIV/AIDS this year, said Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam.

More than 42,000 HIV/AIDS patients in Vietnam had received antiretroviral (ARV) drugs covered by the health insurance fund as of the end of October.

A workshop on a national campaign aiming to raise public awareness of HIV/AIDS as a communicable disease which could be prevented and controlled took place in Hanoi on August 6.

The Undetectable=Untransmittable or K=K (Khong phat hien=Khong lay truyen) campaign was launched in Hanoi on May 3 with a training course on communications work for the campaign.

As many as 89 percent of HIV/AIDS patients receiving antiretroviral drug (ARV) treatment in Vietnam have signed up for health insurance cards so far, with the figure expected to exceed 90 percent by the end of this year.

Community-based organisations participating in a USAID-funded project on HIV/AIDS prevention and control have made great contributions to the work in Vietnam thanks to their new ways of doing.

Vietnam has expanded health insurance coverage among HIV patients taking ARV treatment to 83.4 percent at present from 50 percent in 2016, helping ensure that they can maintain long-term treatment.

Early HIV testing is essential for pregnant women to minimise the risk to transmit the virus from mother to child.

A campaign to tackle HIV was launched in Ho Chi Minh City on May 24.

Hanoi set to expand health insurance coverage to 100 percent of HIV carriers in 2018, heard a recent conference on HIV/AIDS prevention hosted by the municipal Department of Health.

Vietnam has been striving to reduce the number of HIV infections and prevent outbreaks in high-risk communities despite a decline in funding from the international community, health officials said.

Only more than a half of HIV carriers hold health insurance cards, said the Health Ministry’s Department for HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control.

The Health Ministry has reported that HIV carriers in the country has numbered 231,000, with 87,000 having developed full-blown AIDS, and HIV infection in community has continuously been kept under 0.3 percent.

People with HIV and AIDS are expecting medical costs to soar when international health aid is cut off next year, participants at a policy dialogue said on June 27.

A series of models to provide consultations and tests for HIV, through local-level medical establishments have been piloted in some provinces and cities nationwide from 2015-2017.

Anti-retroviral (ARV) treatment for people living with HIV/AIDS will be paid by health insurance from June 2016, said the Department of HIV/AIDS Prevention under the Ministry of Public Health.

Health experts debated measures to effect HIV/AIDS prevention, stressing the need to expand preventive activities, Methadone therapy, anti-retroviral treatment and open bidding for drug supplies.

Up to 100,000 people living with HIV nationwide are currently being treated with antiretroviral (ARV) drug as a result of the on-going effective HIV/AIDS prevention and control programme in Vietnam.

The 90-90-90 Plan, which aims to end the AIDS epidemic in Vietnam by 2020 under a HIV prevention programme initiated by the United Nations, will be piloted in five localities from 2017-2015.