~ Le Viêt Nam, aujourd'hui. ~
The Vietnam News

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[Year 2002]

U.S. to provide AIDS assistance to Vietnam

HANOI, Vietnam - The United States signed an agreement with Vietnam on Monday to provide up to dlrs 20 million over the next five years for AIDS prevention and care, the U.S. Embassy said.

Just over 9,000 new cases of HIV infection were logged in Vietnam during the first seven months of the year, bringing the total number of known HIV carriers in this country of 79 million people to 52,434. But health experts have said the actual number could be twice that. "HIV/AIDS is a development crisis which can reverse the great progress Vietnam is making in fostering economic growth," Ambassador Raymond Burghardt said in a statement.

The U.S. Agency for International Development will fund a program to reduce AIDS among high-risk groups, including sex workers and intravenous drug users. It will also work with Vietnam's Ministry of Health to help improve AIDS policies and reduce discrimination toward people living with the disease and HIV, the virus that causes it, the embassy said. Vietnam's government has portrayed AIDS as a "social evil" akin to prostitution or drug use.

AIDS activists say it is difficult to reach high-risk groups for education and prevention because both prostitution and illegal drug use are stiffly punished. "We ... need to eliminate the confusion between HIV/AIDS and social evils," Burghardt said. "HIV is a virus, not an evil." Monday's agreement is the first between USAID and Vietnam's Ministry of Health, the embassy said.

The Associated Press - September 09, 2002.