Vietnam
is asking international organizations to maintain their support for HIV
treatment and prevention in the country to prevent an increase in infections
after some success.
A report
from the Ministry of Health at a meeting Wednesday said new HIV infections in
Vietnam have dropped from 18,000 in 2010 to around 10,000 last year.
Annual
deaths linked to the infections fell more than 37 percent to around 2,000 over
the same period.
The
report said various campaigns and policies also helped ease discrimination
against people with HIV, without providing relevant statistics.
Representatives
from the health ministry said Vietnam just begins to contain the spread of the
HIV virus and still faces big challenges, including a lack of funding.
International
funds for HIV/AIDS prevention in Vietnam has gone down quickly in recent years,
causing problems in maintaining adequate and qualified staff, they said.
They said
the Vietnamese government will continue to spend more on this area. But Vietnam
will not be able to fight it alone. Without external support, there will be a
rise in infections, they said.
Women now
account for 34 percent of new infections every year. Most of them were infected
from their husbands or boyfriends, according to the report.
Sixty
percent of HIV-positive people in Vietnam are not insured and there is a high
chance that they will give up treatment if antiretroviral treatments become
more expensive.
International
donors have been reducing their funding since April 2015 and will completely
cut it by the end of 2017, according to official sources.
Antiretroviral
treatment costs around VND3-24 million ($136-1,100) a year per person, and
health insurance covers 80-95 percent of it.
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