Aids: Vietnam's silent sufferers
It was mid-afternoon and the meeting hall at the Binh Trieu Drug Rehabilitation Centre in Ho Chi Minh City was at its busiest.
Relatives of inmates had come to see them and the centre was filled with laughter and noisy chatting.
But only a few steps away was a totally different world - a three-storey block, separated from the rest of the centre by a small courtyard and an unlocked door, which was so still and quiet it could have been empty.
Only occasional bursts of coughing and moaning suggested the presence of its occupants - the patients of Binh Trieu hospital, the only care centre for Aids patients in Vietnam.
A woman, about 20 years old, was the only patient in the room fit enough to talk. Yet her voice was so faint I had to go close to hear her.
"I don't feel bad in daytime, but during the nights when my temperature soars," she said.
"Sometimes the doctors have to put me under a drip. I think they will release me as soon as I get better.
"Then I have nowhere to go but home. I have my mum and my sister but I haven't seen them since they sent me here," she said.
Her thin legs and arms were covered in open sores and she had a bad cough.
The director of the hospital, Nguyen Van Ngai, said they suspected the girl also had tuberculosis, a disease commonly encountered in Aids patients.
"There were five patients in this room but one has just 'departed' this morning," Nguyen Van Ngai said.
At Binh Trieu, they do not mention the word "die" - they say "depart" or "leave".
Since the beginning of the year, 20 people have "left" this place, never to return.
Authorities in Ho Chi Minh City collect patients who have already developed full-blown Aids, and bring them to the hospital.
Most patients are drug addicts, from the city's numerous rehabilitation centres.
"What we do here is to give the patients some moral support so that they could become a little calmer, more optimistic and therefore prolong their lives," said Mr Nguyen.
"We don't treat Aids, as the anti-retroviral drugs are too expensive. We can only spare (some) to treat our staff who have accidentally contracted the virus through working with patients," he added.
However, the hospital does provide some treatment for accompanying illnesses such as tuberculosis and skin diseases.
Lack of funding
Even locally produced generic drugs are still out of reach for most patients, as the majority are jobless addicts abandoned by their families.
Government funding is minuscule. Statistics show that the per capita budget for HIV/Aids prevention in Ho Chi Minh City stands at 1,000 Vietnamese dong (less than 10 US cents) per year.
Yet the most difficult task for the hospital's management is not financial, but finding staff, as the city government wants to enlarge the existing facilities to accommodate more patients.
Public perception of Aids in Vietnam has not changed much since the first case of the disease was discovered 10 years ago. It is still associated with so-called "social vices" such as prostitution and drug abuse.
Families of Aids patients are under huge pressure not to reveal the truth for fear of mistreatment and isolation. Visitors are therefore rarely seen at the hospital.
"People still think if someone's relations have Aids, that person would be infected sooner or later," explained a nurse, who asked not to be named.
"I don't tell anybody that I'm working here because otherwise my husband and my daughters will be immediately isolated," she said.
With the number of prostitutes infected with Aids in Vietnam's second city rocketing in recent years, Ho Chi Minh's authorities are worried about the future.
Official statistics released by the government show there are 13,000 carriers of the deadly virus in the city, but experts estimate the real figure to be 10 times higher.
Most of them still do not know about the disease.
When I left Binh Trieu hospital, everything was still quiet.
The girl who I spoke to gave me a silent goodbye wave, her eyes the dark shade of afternoon.
Or was it is the shade of desperation and loneliness? It was hard to tell.
By Nga Pham - BBC Vietnamese Service - April 18, 2003.
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