Vietnam to attend UN’s high-level meeting on ending AIDS

Vietnam will attend the UN General Assembly High-Level Meeting on Ending AIDS, in June in the US.

Vietnam will attend the UN General Assembly High-Level Meeting on Ending AIDS, in June in the US.

 A medical worker takes blood sample for HIV testing

A Vietnamese representative will deliver a speech at the UN General Assembly and join other countries in drafting and approving a declaration on ending AIDS.

In Vietnam, about 10,000 HIV cases were detected in 2015, down from 18,000 in 2010. HIV-linked deaths also declined from 3,200 to 2,000 during that time. Discrimination against HIV patients is reported to have eased.

The Ministry of Health’s Department for Preventive Medicine and the Joint UN Programme on HIV and AIDS (UNAIDS) held a consultation last week to prepare for the meeting.

At the consultation, UNAIDS Vietnam Country Director Kristan Schoultz said the Southeast Asian nation faces an array of challenges, with HIV infections rising in women whose partners have risky sexual behaviour, men who have same-sex intercourse, transgender women, and through unprotected group sex.

The HIV/AIDS prevention programme has not been large enough to curb the problem. Meanwhile, foreign financial aid, the main source of funding for AIDS prevention and control, is falling sharply.

Those are considerable challenges and issues Vietnam should highlight at the upcoming high-level meeting on ending AIDS, Schoultz noted.