Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2000. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2000. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Reuters NewMedia - Wednesday November 29, 2000
The Vietnamese Health Ministry figures, released ahead of Friday's World Aids Day, represent a dramatic rise from the 2,371 people it has previous reported to have died of AIDS and the 27,290 it says have so far tested positive for the HIV virus.
Wednesday's official Vietnam News newspaper quoted the ministry as saying the country was experiencing the first stages of an HIV/AIDS epidemic. If the disease went unchecked, nearly 200,000 people would contract HIV within five years and more than 46,000 would die of AIDS, it said.
A statement from the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS - UNAIDS - said 107,000 people were currently estimated to be infected with HIV in Vietnam, 85 percent of them men. It said 65 percent of the total were intravenous drug users.
Laurent Zessler, of UNAIDS in Vietnam, said the number of infections was reaching "a critical point, after which the epidemic will be very difficult to contain."
"The United Nations now consider Vietnam - along with Cambodia, Burma and southern China - as one of Asia's AIDS blackspots," he said in the statement. UNAIDS said the top priority in Vietnam was to promote more widespread condom use and to cut HIV transmission among injecting drug users.
To this end on Friday 11 pink buses decorated with condoms and red ribbons will take the message around Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City and surrounding areas. The battle to control AIDS in Vietnam has encountered some difficulties as sexual matters are rarely discussed in public.
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