Hanoi (VNA) – Two free-of-charge consulting rooms for HIV carriers were opened in the Thanh Nhan Hospital and the Hanoi Tuberculosis and Lung Disease Hospital in Hai Ba Trung precinct on April 23.
As scheduled, several similar rooms will be opened on April 24 and 25 in hospitals located in Hanoi ’s suburban districts, including the Duc Giang, Soc Son, Thanh Tri and Dong Anh polyclinics.
These rooms, for outpatients only, were launched as part of the Life-Gap project financed by the US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention. The project, carried out by the Health Ministry, has been expanded to 29 provinces and cities of Vietnam .
Pham Le Tuan, Deputy Director of the Hanoi Health Department, said the rooms will give medical treatment to HIV/AIDS carriers, particularly HIV-infected mothers to help reduce the mother-to-child HIV transmission. In addition, the rooms will give anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs to HIV carriers to help reduce the mortality.
According to the Health Ministry’s HIV/AIDS Department, all provinces and cities in Vietnam have found HIV-infected cases, concentrating in high-risk groups, particularly drug addicts, and showing the sign of increase in the group having unsafe sex.
The Department’s data showed that since the first case detected in December 1990, the epidemic started its boom three years later amongst drug addicts.
So far, Vietnam has discovered some 300,000 HIV carriers, or 30 cases found every day on average. Actually, the number of HIV carriers is believed to be much higher that the statistics.
However, thanks to the health care sector’s efforts, the number of HIV/AIDS patients using ARV in 2007 increased to 16,500, tripling the figure in 2006.-Enditem
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