New York (VNA) - Deputy Prime Minister Pham Gia Khiem reassured the international community of Viet Nam's pledges to contain HIV/AIDS by 2015 at a plenary session on June 2 of the UN General Assembly Summit on the pandemic, which is taking place in New York city.
Khiem highlighted Viet Nam's achievements in containing the disease among high-risk groups of people, resulting in a sharp drop in the number of new HIV carriers over the past three years.
Viet Nam is on track to fulfil its target of reducing the number of newly-infected HIV carriers to below 0.3 percent by 2010, said the Deputy PM.
He attributed the success to the participation of the entire political system and strong support from the international community.
"Viet Nam has issued an ordinance on HIV/AIDS and is prepared to pass a law on HIV/AIDS control.
"The Government has worked out a relevant strategy for 2010 and a Vision-2020, focusing on efforts to eliminate all discrimination and ensure equal accesses to medical and social services for all citizens, as well as to make programmes on HIV/AIDS accessible to people vulnerable to the epidemic, especially youth," emphasised the Deputy PM.
At the UN forum, the Deputy PM called on the international community to pay special attention to children in the fight against HIV/AIDS because they are the future of the world.
Last March, Viet Nam successfully organised the first consultative conference on children and HIV/AIDS in the East Asia-Pacific region, he said.
The Deputy PM urged developed nations to intensify transfer of technologies and ease copyright regulations so that developing countries would be able to access cheap HIV/AIDS treatment drugs, and increase research and technology development cooperation among countries in order to develop new drugs and vaccines to prevent and treat HIV/AIDS.
He also called for intensified regional and sub-regional cooperation in an effort to prevent and control cross-border spread of HIV.
On the sidelines of the summit, the Deputy PM held meetings with P resident of the UN General Assembly for the 60th session Jan Eliason, General Director of the UN Development Programme (UNDP) Kemal Dervis, Executive Director of the UN Children's Fund ( UNICEF) Ann Veneman, Executive Director of the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) Peter Piot and Executive Director of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) Thoraya Ahmed Obaid.
In these meetings, the Deputy PM and senior UN officials spoke highly of the cooperation between Viet Nam and UN agencies and expressed hope that this cooperation would be further developed.
The senior UN officials praised Viet Nam's development and new achievements in implementing the Millennium Development Goals, particularly in eliminating hunger and reducing poverty as well as in the fight against HIV/AIDS. Enditem
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