HCM CITY — HIV/AIDS patients in southern Đồng Nai Province will be treated at local health clinics to ensure they do not give up treatment, according to the province’s Department of Health.

They would not be transferred to provincial level or regional hospitals because of various reasons, Huỳnh Cao Hải, the department’s deputy head, told a meeting held with the US Agency for International Development (USAID) on Wednesday to discuss its technical assistance toward sustainable HIV/AIDS prevention in the province.

Transferring them to provincial- and regional-level hospitals would ensure they can use their health insurance since some local clinics do not have tie-ups with the social insurance agency. But Hải said it could make some of them give up treatment because of the need to travel long distances or complex about their situation.

The province has set its sights on the UN 90-90-90 goals: 90 per cent of all people living with HIV will know their HIV status, 90 per cent of people diagnosed with HIV will receive sustained antiretroviral (ARV) therapy, and 90 per cent of people receiving ARV will achieve viral suppression by 2020. 

Now 68 per cent of people with HIV in the province know their HIV status, 46.5 per cent of them receive sustained ARV therapy, and 93 per cent of those receiving ARV have achieved viral suppression. 

Hải said USAID could provide assistance in achieving these goals soon.

According to a USAID representative, a programme for this purpose will start in the province next September and go on until 2030.

The province will get assistance in accessing, testing and treating HIV and accessing health insurance.

USAID will also train health staff in identifying new HIV patients and people living with HIV without knowing it.

These people will be counselled on testing and treating for viral suppression to prevent the spread in the community.

According to the local Centre for HIV, the province has had nearly 8,000 patients with HIV/AIDS since 1993, with nearly 4,300 ones under management and more than 1,100 ones not known their trace. The rest have deceased.

Of those with HIV/AIDS receiving treatment, nearly 80 per cent have health insurance. 

The province has seven clinics for treating them. By the last quarter of this year, all of them will be upgraded.

All patients’ treatment is expected to be covered by health insurance by year end.

The Department of Health has instructed all health facilities in the province to send their staff to attend training courses on ARV therapy because soon every district will have at least one facility to treat HIV/AIDS. — VNS