Deputy PM receives UN HIV/AIDS official

ABO/VNA - Deputy Prime Minister and Chairman of the National Committee for AIDS, Drug and Prostitution Prevention and Control Vu Duc Dam hosted a reception in Hanoi on November 29 for Director of the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) Regional Support Team for Asia and the Pacific Eamonn Murphy.

Deputy PM Vu Duc Dam and Director of the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS Regional Support Team for Asia and the Pacific Eamonn Murphy (Photo: VGP)

Dam asked the UNAIDS to continue assisting Vietnam in directing activities of sponsors, enhancing resources for HIV/AIDS prevention and control, working closely with Vietnamese National Assembly units and localities on sustainable financial policies for the fight against HIV/AIDS, and improving coordinating capacity of the committee.

He wished that the UNAIDS would assist Vietnamese organisations in the work and ease the discrimination against those living with HIV.

Murphy, for his part, said UNAIDS directs global response to providing care for HIV/AIDS patients in Vietnam, and works closely with other organisations to build and launch the national monitoring and evaluation framework on the HIV/AIDS prevention and control programme.

Speaking highly of Vietnam’s achievements in the effort, he said the HIV/AIDS epidemics has been controlled below 0.3 percent with decreases in the number of new HIV/AIDS patients, that of those in transition to AIDS period, and that of fatalities by AIDS.

Vietnam is one of the few countries globally to pay HIV treatment costs, including ARV drug via health insurance fund, he noted.

Vietnam strives to have 90 percent of people living with HIV to be diagnosed, 90 percent of people diagnosed with HIV to be on antiretroviral treatment, and 90 percent of people on treatment to have an undetectable viral load by 2030.

(Source: NDO)