Well, the lesson 1 bombards me with a lot of things to read and do research. Now I would like to provide the current HIV situation in Vietnam.
Part A: Understand the epidemic in Vietnam
The epidemic in Vietnam is very urgent. I read from the 2007 UNAIDS report in Vietnam that every day about 100 people get infected by HIV!
OK so now, here are some 2009 stats. I search them from the Ministry of Health:
Vietnam's population: About 86 million
Number of PLHIV (2009): 156,802
AIDS patients: 34,391
People died of AIDS-related illness: 44,232
I have tried my best but I cannot find the number of new infections in the previous year. But I can find that in the third quarter of 2009, the number of new infections is 7,934 and the total number of PLHIV in 2009 (I mean from the beginning of the year to the third quarter) is 19,630
Social inequilities:
PLHIV aged 20-29: Over 50%
Male: 79%; Female: 21% - but due to increased heterosexual transmission, the number of infected females compared to males is increasing each year. In 2005, the percent of female PLHIV is only 15%
Although we do not know the number of children living with HIV (the website says), it is estimated that there is an increasing number of children infected and affected by HIV. A newspaper (from December 2009, source here, in Vietnamese) even quotes that about 1000 children get infected by HIV every year.
In Vietnam, sex work and drugs using is criminalised. In fact, the term "prostitute" or "sex workers" is often associated with "social evils" (it is not evil, kind of disorder or discrimination or sth like that). Stigma and discrimination against homosexuality and sexual minotiries, and HIV are also manifest. Actually, people may even discriminate people working in HIV organisations, even they are not HIV-positive (my personal experience).
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3 comments:
Thanks for this great post Tuan Do! Great work so far. Do you know what the main modes of transmission are in Vietnam? Would be interesting to find out why men have a higher prevalence than women... in sub-Saharan Africa for example women have very high rates of HIV.
Keep up the great work!
Chief.
Reading you post reminded me of when when I was still a young boy watching vietnam movies. thanks.
1. Its amazing that you can count new infections in numbers, here we count in percentages as numbers would freak us to death.
2. Its seems its similar that in all countries we have an increase in GLH community.
Hi Tuan! What are some ways that the stigma and discrimination against people who use drugs, sex workers, and men who have sex with men affects their vulnerability to HIV infection?
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