International aid sources for Vietnam’s HIV/AIDS prevention and control programmes will peter out by 2017, posing huge challenges for the country's fight to curb and deal with the spread and treatment of the virus.

Hoang Dinh Canh, deputy head of the Ministry of Health’s HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control, told reporters on the sidelines of a conference on HIV/AIDS in HCM City that up to 80 percent of Vietnam’s total budget for HIV/AIDS prevention and control activities came from international aid agencies.

But due to the world economic downturn, and Vietnam’s rise in the economic rankings, assistance for treatment of the human immunodeficiency virus, which is the precursor to acquired immune deficiency syndrome, has been gradually lowered and is expected to end by 2017, Canh said.

He said Vietnam's priority should be to ensure intravenous drug users have access to free clean injection needles, and sex workers should have access to free condoms.

Drug addiction treatments, such as methadone for heroin users, should also be freely available, but that would depend on stable sources of foreign aid, he said.

Vietnam distributes some 30m needles and 30m condoms each year.

But, as funds have begun to dry up, in the first five months of this year only three million needles were provided to drug users, while condom numbers fell to 1.7 million, opening the way to a potential public health catastrophe.

Vietnam has more than 95,000 people with HIV/AIDS receiving for free the triple cocktail ARV treatment. But if the government has to charge for treatment, each person would need to pay VND12,000-24,000 a day, indicating many may abandon treatment because they cannot afford it, and raising the risk of those with HIV progressing to AIDS.

Canh said that the government should consider using the state budget and extending health insurance coverage, but the country’s health insurance fund is already under considerable pressure.

He said that official statistics indicated 300,000 people had contracted HIV in Vietnam, of whom 73,000 have died. The real figures may be much higher.

Experts say HIV infection through unsafe sex has been on the rise. HIV can only be contracted through direct blood-to-blood transmission, such as a contaminated needle or unscreened blood transfusions, or through sexual intercourse, either male-female or male-male, without a condom.

Khuat Thu Hong, head of the Institute for Social Development Studies, said she had problems reaching sex workers, who were afraid of being arrested, fined or being discriminated against, so they do not go to medical centres for testing or treatment.

Dtinews