NGUOI VIET - HIV and AIDS in Viet Nam

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HIV and AIDS in Viet Nam
Thursday, September 28, 2006 By Pauline Vu

It’s not obvious from appearances, but Việt Nam is a country on the brink of disaster.

Twenty-five years after the first AIDS case was documented in the United States and 16 years after Việt Nam reported its first case, the country’s epidemic is being driven by prostitution and, even more than that, heroin addiction.
A 2005 report from the country’s Ministry of Health pegged the number of Vietnamese living with HIV/AIDS at nearly 122,000 at the end of 2000. The document, citing figures compiled by agencies including the World Health Organization and the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS, estimated that number could grow to 311,500 by the end of 2010.

Yet it’s still not too late. Experts say that compared to other countries, Việt Nam’s prevalence rate is fairly low, putting it at a crucial point in the fight against HIV and AIDS. It could become the tragedy that is Africa, where in one nation, 38.8 percent of the population has HIV or AIDS; or it could be the rare success story, an example for the rest of the world to look to.

While the Vietnamese government, foreign NGOs and organizations such as the United Nations struggle over the larger issues of how to stem the tide and help those afflicted with the disease, another group with far less power is also trying to do its part in the fight. Those are the people who have the biggest stake of all in the fight: those living with HIV and AIDS.

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