Vietnam needs about 20,000 health workers for HIV/AIDS prevention by 2020, including doctors, pharmacists, consultants, nursing workers. The figure was released at a conference on training human resources for the anti-HIV/AIDS work in Hanoi July 6, chaired by Deputy Minister of Health Trinh Quan Huan, the Vietnam News Agency said. The country currently has about 1,300 such workers, compared to the number of more than 150,000 people infected with HIV in need of care and treatment, said Nguyen Thanh Long, head of the Vietnam Administration of AIDS Control. A modest number of students are keen on the preventive health sector, particularly the anti-HIV work, said Tran Thanh Duong, vice head of the Department of Preventive Health. Investments and facilities for the sector have not yet been adequate, Duong was quoted as saying. Since the first case was found in the country in 1990, Vietnam has identified 156,802 people with HIV and 44,230 deaths of the disease.
