US launches new project to support HIV/AIDS response in Vietnam

A file photo shows a woman receiving HIV treatment consultancy in the northern province of Son La. Photo: VietnamPlus

The US Agency for International Development (USAID) on Wednesday announced its new five-year US$26 million project to strengthen and sustain Vietnam’s HIV/AIDS response.

The Sustainable HIV Response From Technical Assistance Project, implemented until 2021, is expected to improve Vietnam’s human, organizational and systems capacity to lead the national response.

USAID Vietnam Mission Director Michael Greene said in a statement: “The project will scale up services along the entire HIV care continuum from diagnosis to successful treatment in high HIV burden provinces to achieve “90-90-90” HIV case-finding, care, and treatment targets.”

“It will also provide demand-driven technical assistance at the national, provincial and local levels to build sustainable HIV/AIDS services and systems,” he said.

There were an estimated 260,000 people living with HIV in Vietnam as of 2016. In recent years, new cases of HIV have declined.

In 2014, Vietnam became the first country in Asia to adopt the 90-90-90 targets set by the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS. Under the program, by 2020, 90 percent of people living with HIV will know their HIV status; 90 percent of people who know their status are on HIV treatment; and 90 percent of all people on treatment will have undetectable levels of HIV in their body, known as viral suppression.

USAID first supported HIV/AIDS programs in Vietnam in the mid-1990s.

Since 2005, the US government has supported life-saving antiretroviral treatment for almost 57,000 people and provided care to more than 62,000 adults and children in Vietnam. Last year, the US provided HIV tests to more than 375,000 people and methadone replacement therapy to almost 25,000 people in the Southeast Asian country.