Vietnam launches HIV campaign aimed at the youth

Vietnam’s General Department of Population and Family Planning under the Ministry of Health on Tuesday launched an HIV and Aids awareness campaign that promotes safer-sex practices among young people in the country, the VNS/Viet Nam News reports. The campaign will focus on youth ages 15 to 24 in 15 provinces with large ethnic minority populations. It falls under the framework of a $20-million campaign funded by the Asian Development Bank and implemented by the population and family planning department between 2007 and 2011. The HIV youth campaign is the largest of its kind launched in Vietnam, according to VNS/Viet Nam News. It aims to reduce HIV prevalence to less than 0.3 percent by 2010, according to a population and family planning department official. In addition, the project will focus on implementing Vietnam’s national HIV and Aids strategy, which includes prevention and outreach programmes at the provincial and district levels.