HANOI, Nov 30 (AFP) - Two special trans-national trains have been launched in Vietnam to mark this year's World AIDS Day, aimed at increasing local people's awareness of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which leads to aquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS).
The 41-hour trains leaving Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City on Tuesday morning, which were decorated with banners, stickers and red ribbons, will make 16 stops at different stations across the country. Information on HIV/AIDS prevention, as well as condoms, will be distributed to passengers on the trains and at stations.
World AIDS Day is Wednesday.
"The risk of contracting the disease has increased dramatically for all people, especially women and young people in recent years so the propaganda and education campaign like that would bear fruit in the fight against the disease," vice-director of the National AIDS Bureau, Chu Quoc An, said at the launching ceremony in Hanoi.
The main event was organized by the National AIDS Bureau, the Vietnam railway union and the United Nations AIDS (UNAIDS) agency and its cosponsors.
In Vietnam, 16,663 people have been registered as infected by the deadly HIV virus since records of the epidemic began in 1990. And 1,549 of them have died from AIDS.
It is estimated that by 2000 there will be around 160,000 cases infected with HIV and 21,000 cases of full-blown AIDS, with deaths reaching 15,000.
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