He told a recent conference on preventing prostitution and drug addiction that this year’s number of reported addicts in the city rose by 25.16 percent to reach 2,417.

Of the total, 757 were new addicts who were reported for the first time and 484 had relapsed into the old habit, Tam said.

The rest or nearly half of the total came from other provinces and cities nationwide making policing complicated, he added.

The Deputy head of the department’s Social Evils Prevention Division, Le Van Quy, said that only 27 out of 127 spots of prostitution and drug trade in the city had been eliminated since the beginning of the year.

The management of and support for former addicts reintegrated into society remained poor as more than 1,600 out of 2,200 detoxified addicts left their localities and did not report to local authorities.

Nearly 70 percent of rehabilitated addicts were assisted in finding jobs with monthly incomes ranging from VND800,000 to VND2 million (US$44-110), yet most of the jobs were unstable.