Vietnam takes AIDS campaign on historic rail link
HANOI - Vietnam's Reunification Express
rumbled out of Hanoi on Tuesday, decked with banners warning
about AIDS and stocked with condoms to give away along the
journey to the former Saigon.
Health officials handed out leaflets and condoms to passengers
as they jostled with peasants selling bread and newspapers to
board the train, which takes more than 30 hours to reach Ho
Chi Minh City.
Several Vietnamese and U.N. agencies organised the initiative to
coincide with World AIDS Day, which falls on Wednesday.
Vietnam has expressed growing alarm at the spread of AIDS.
Last week official media said some 600 new cases of the
Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), which can lead to
AIDS, were being reported each month.
The most recent official figures showed Vietnam had 16,175
people with HIV, while 2,907 people had developed full-blown
AIDS. Of this figure, 1,512 had died. Health workers say the
actual number of HIV and AIDS sufferers is much higher.
Vietnam has a thriving prostitution industry and a growing
drug-use problem, but has tried to tackle the problem of AIDS
through public awareness campaigns.
The Reunification Express, whose name symbolises the joining
of North and South Vietnam at the end of the Vietnam War in
1975, is a vital transport link and rattles through the former
imperial capital Hue, central Danang and the old trading port of
Hoi An.
Reuters - November 30, 1999.
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