Vietnam posts key achievements in HIV/AIDS prevention

Vietnam is the first country in the Asia-Pacific region to commit to realising the 90-90-90 target set by the UN.

According to the MoH's Department of HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control, realising the 90-90-90 target is extremely important in preventing HIV/AIDS and eliminating it by 2030.

At present, nearly 151,000 HIV-infected people aware of their status have undergone antiretroviral (ARV) therapy, accounting for 75 percent, while 96 percent of ARV-treated patients have had the virus suppressed.

The country is making every effort to have 95 percent of HIV carriers aware of their status, 95 percent of whom are to access sustained ARV therapy and 95 percent of such patients are to have the virus suppressed.

The targets are key to efforts to erase AIDS in Vietnam by 2030, in accordance with the National Strategy on HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control to 2030.

Since 2018, Vietnam has worked tirelessly to promote Undetectable=Untransmittable, or U=U (K=K in Vietnamese) - a campaign that encourages people living with HIV to undergo continual ARV treatment to have their viral load suppressed and stop the virus from being passed on.

Reports from the MoH show that Vietnam has contained the prevalence of HIV among the general population to below 0.3 percent, as targeted in the National Strategy on HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control to 2020 with a Vision to 2030.

In the national strategy for ending AIDS by 2030, Vietnam targets bringing the number of newly-detected infections to under 1,000 a year, while fatalities linked to HIV/AIDS are to be less than one per 100,000 people.

(Source: VNA)