Vietnam sees falls in HIV/AIDS patients for 8 years in a row

Bac Ninh (VNA) – The numbers of HIV carriers, AIDS patients and AIDS-related deaths in Vietnam have decreased for the eighth consecutive year in 2015 thanks to great effort in HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and care.

The achievement was highlighted at a meeting in Bac Ninh City, northern Bac Ninh province on November 29 in response to the national action month for HIV/AIDS prevention and control in 2015, themed “Towards 90-90-90 target to end AIDS epidemic in Vietnam”, and the World AIDS Day (December 1).

The event, organised by the Ministry of Health, the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union (HCYU) Central Committee and the provincial People’s Committee, brought together youth and medical workers from ten provinces in northern Vietnam.

In his remarks, Deputy Health Minister Nguyen Thanh Long said HIV/AIDS has remained a major threat to human health across the globe and a great burden to economic development and security. The world today has about 36.9 million HIV-positive patients and approximately 40 million people have died of AIDS, Long stated.

Vietnam has delivered a comprehensive set of services for HIV prevention, treatment care and support, notably the mobile HIV testing and consulting programme in community settings, the official said, adding that the country is on the right track to achieve the 90-90-90 target for HIV/AIDS prevention and control by 2020, towards the ending of the epidemic by 2030 as set by the United Nations.

The UN’s 90-90-90 Plan aims at: 90 percent of people living with HIV will know their status, 90 percent of people who know their status are on regular antiretroviral (ARV) treatment and 90 percent of all people on treatment will have undetectable levels of HIV in their body (known as viral suppression) by 2020.

In 2014, Vietnam was the first Asian-Pacific country responding to the plan . Since 1990, approximately 230,000 Vietnamese people have been found living with HIV, of whom 85,000 were died of AIDS.-VNA