Vietnam PM Approves $7M Global Fund-granted HIV/AIDS Project

Vietnam’s Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has approved a non-refundable HIV/AIDS prevention project worth $7 million granted by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (The Global Fund). The funding will be used to promote the participation of social organizations and community-based organizations to the implementation of the law on HIV/AIDS control and national strategies on HIV/AIDS prevention by 2020 and vision to 2030. The project will focus on lowering HIV infection rate among drug users, sex workers, men who have sex with men (MSM) and transgender people together with increasing access to HIV/AIDS preventive measures. To be done for the 2015-2017 period, the project is partly aimed to fulfill the target of lowering HIV infection rate among the public to below 0.3% by 2020. Vietnam currently has roughly 260,000 people living with HIV/AIDS who are available in all cities and provinces nationwide. HIV/AIDS-infected people are mainly young and in working ages. The country has launched antiretrovirals (ARV) programs to help improve life of peeps living with HIV but spending for the prevention and control activities is costly. The HIV/AIDS prevention and control in Vietnam will face difficulties as roughly 80% of the total expenses are sourced outside the country. Foreign financial support would reduce from 2015 after the country enters the countries of middle income. (Baochinhphu.vn Oct 19)