The agreement was reached at a working session on July 27 between leaders of Kenya’s National AIDS Control Council (NACC) and Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Truong Vinh Trong who was in Nairobi for an official visit.

Both sides discussed issues of mutual concern including implementing preventive measures on HIV infection and mother-to-child transmission of HIV as well as using antiretroviral (ARV) drugs in treating HIV patients.

Vietnamese delegates inquired to the council’s operations, the HIV/AIDS epidemic situation, the rate of infection among the community and difficulties in HIV/AIDS prevention.

Professor Aloys Orago said the NACC was established in 1999 to fight against the deadly disease in Kenya, aiming to build a strategic policy framework to mobilize and co-ordinate human resources to prevent HIV infection, as well as supporting and treating HIV-infected people in Kenya.

Currently, the NACC is implementing a national programme on HIV/AIDS prevention in the third phase (2009-2013), striving to provide 80 percent of infected adults and children with HIV/AIDS will have access to ARV drugs for treatment.

The same day, the Deputy PM and his entourage visited Liverpool, a voluntary counselling and testing (VCT) centre in Nairobi.