Hanoi workshop seeks to ensure finance for HIV/AIDS fight
Measures to ensure financial resources for preventing and fighting HIV/AIDS were discussed at a workshop held in Hanoi on July 10.
Organised by the National Assembly’s Committee for Social Affairs, the conference also heard international experiences in mobilising financial assistance and updated the building of finance strategies in the field.
At the workshop, KristanSchoultz, UNAIDS Country Director in Vietnam KristanSchoultz highly valued Vietnam’s efforts in building a project on ensuring finance for HIV/AIDS prevention activities in the period of 2013-2020, saying that this shows the country’s strong determination in looking for solutions to the issue.
Dang Thuan Phong, deputy head of the committee, said at the event that Vietnam has curbed the rate of HIV carriers to under 0.3%, while attempting to reduce the number of new infection cases and deaths.
He also noted that it is difficult to reach the targets as the State budget allocation and other resources for the work were cut down to only VND207 billion (US$9.7 million) in 2013 from VND245 billion in the previous year, and the figure is likely to be only VND83 billion in 2014.
At the end of April, Vietnam counted 219,163 people living with HIV and 67,557 AIDS patients. The virus has led to the death of some 69,449 people across the country.
Participants said the coverage of services for preventing HIV/AIDS remains limited as the distribution of condoms and injection needles meets only about 50% of the need, while the treatment therapies satisfy only one-third of HIV cases.
In Vietnam, up to 80% of expense for preventing HIV/AIDS is from assistance resources, and many aid projects have come to an end or are on the verge of completion.
Therefore, it is necessary to pay attention to consolidating the HIV/AIDS prevention networks from the central to local level, improving the quality of service providers, and broaden Methadone treatment for addicts in the community, said representatives from the Vietnam Administration of HIV/AIDS Control.
They also underlined the necessity to hold campaigns raising public awareness of HIV/AIDS prevention measures.
In order to ensure sustainable resources for realising goals set in the field, the administration of HIV/AIDS has proposed the Government and the NA to set up a national programme for HIV/AIDS prevention for the 2016-2020 period.
The programme is being considered by the Prime Minister for approval.