A medical worker tests blood samples :

The Hanoi Medical University Hospital is one of the eight medical establishments in Hanoi to launch this service in 2019 with the support of the Administration for HIV/AIDS Control under the Health Ministry and the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in Vietnam.

PrEP allows people who do not have HIV but are at substantial risk of infection to prevent HIV by taking a pill every day, as part of a combination HIV prevention strategy. When taken correctly, the treatment would reduce the risk of HIV infection via unsafe sex by 90 percent or via injection drug use by 70 percent.

The service helps ease the dependence on physical measures to prevent HIV transmission such as condom or safe syringe.

As of the end of 2018, the number of alive HIV carriers in Vietnam was estimated at 250,000, with 10,000 new infections found a year.

It is alarming that while HIV infections are reduced significantly in groups with high risks such as drugs addicts (from 29-30 percent to 9-10 percent) and sex workers (from 5 percent to 3.4 percent), the rate is rising in the group of men having sex with men (from 7.4 percent to 11.4 percent), according to 2018 statistics.

It is estimated that Vietnam has around 174,000 men having sex with men (MSM) aged from 15-49, including over 30,000 in Hanoi (or 17.5 percent).

PrEP was first piloted in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City in 2016. The Ministry of Health made it part of the direction for HIV/AIDS care and treatment in 2017 and passed a plan to roll out the service for the 2018-2020 in 2018 with the provision of free antiretroviral drugs for HIV treatment.

At present, over 2,000 people are using the service.

As scheduled, nine cities and provinces will supply the service in 2019, and the figure will be raised to 11 in 2020, with the goal of having 7,300 users.

Vietnam is the second country in Asia to launch PrEP service nationwide, after Thailand.-VNA

.-VNA