Vietnam To Begin Five-Year, $38.5M HIV/AIDS Prevention Program; Majority of Funding From World Bank Grant
Vietnam in June will begin a five-year, $38.5 million HIV/AIDS prevention program aimed at keeping HIV prevalence in the country below 0.3%, according to Trinh Quan Huan, director of the government's General Department of Preventive Medicine and HIV/AIDS Control, Viet Nam News reports. The project will get most of its funding from a $35 million grant from the World Bank, Huan said (Viet Nam News, 4/20). The World Bank approved the grant last month, saying that a majority of the grant will support specific action plans in two cities and 18 provinces throughout the country. The country's national HIV/AIDS strategy aims to reduce HIV prevalence, increase awareness about the disease, and change attitudes and behaviors toward the epidemic among the general population and policymakers (Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report, 3/31). The government's programs also will attempt to improve the management and treatment of sexually transmitted diseases, as well as increase the number of health care workers in the country (Viet Nam News, 4/20). Representatives from the World Bank, Vietnam's Ministry of Health and the 20 beneficiary localities recently gathered in Hanoi, Vietnam, for a two-day conference to discuss how to effectively implement the program (Thai News Service, 4/21). According to the Ministry of Health, approximately 245,000 people in the country were HIV-positive at the end of 2003, but international health experts have said that the number could increase to more than one million by 2010 (Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report, 3/31).
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