HÀ NỘI — The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has announced its new, five-year, US$26-million project to strengthen and sustain Việt Nam’s HIV and AIDS response.

The Sustainable HIV Response from Technical Assistance (SHIFT) Project, to be implemented by FHI 360 till 2021, will strengthen Việt Nam’s human, organisational and systemic capacity to lead the national HIV and AIDS response, a press release said today.

“The project will scale up services along the entire HIV care continuum from diagnosis to successful treatment in high HIV-burden provinces to achieve ‘90-90-90’ HIV case-finding, care and treatment targets,” USAID Vietnam Mission Director Michael Greene said.

“It will also provide demand-driven technical assistance at the national, provincial and local levels to build sustainable HIV/AIDS services and systems,” he said.

There are an estimated 260,000 people living with HIV in Việt Nam as of 2016. In recent years, new cases of HIV have shown a decline.

In 2014, Việt Nam became the first country in Asia to adopt the 90–90–90 targets set by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), under which by 2020, 90 per cent of the people living with HIV will know their HIV status; 90 per cent of the people who know their status are on HIV treatment; and 90 per cent of all people under treatment will have undetectable levels of HIV in their body (known as viral suppression).

Since 2005, the American government, through the United States President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), has supported life-saving antiretroviral treatment for almost 57,000 people, and provided care to more than 62,000 adults and children nationwide. — VNS