Around 40,000 locally-infected cases of HIV in Vietnam are unaware of their disease conditions, said Assoc. Prof.-Dr. Nguyen Hoang Long, head of the Vietnam Administration of HIV/AIDS Control, under the Ministry of Health. The official gave the information in the context that Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc on August 14 approved a national plan on stamping out AIDS by 2030. This year also marks the 30th year of Vietnam’s battle against the epidemic. Vietnam is standing in front of an opportunity to put an end to AIDS in 2030, with the goal of bringing down the number of HIV infections to below 1,000 people per year. However, the national plan implementation may encounter several hurdles, Mr. Long said. People have turned lax in HIV/AIDS containment; the epidemic situations remain complex, apart from hard-to-control behaviors with high risks of transmission; and financial source stay restricted, he elaborated. Vietnam is now estimated to have 250,000 HIV-infected people. Over the past ten years, the country has prevented over 500,000 locals from catching the disease and nearly 200,000 others from dying of AIDS, experts estimated. (Tin Tuc, VnExpress, Tin Tuc)
