On November 24th 2007, at Square 20/8, Thai Nguyen Provincial Women''s Union, Youth Union, STDs and HIV/AIDS Prevention Centre and 16 colleges of Thai Nguyen University jointly organized a camp on the occasion of the World AIDS Day under the theme "Viet Bac''s commitment – Youth-led HIV/AIDS prevention".
HIV is overwhelmingly transmitted through sexual contact, through intravenous drug use, through infected blood donations and from mother to child during pregnancy. Since the first HIV case was detected in Thai Nguyen in July 1996, up to October 30th 2007, there were 3, 372 HIV-infected persons in the whole province, in which 1,042 ones have developed AIDS and 657 ones have been killed by AIDS. As estimated, HIV cases have appeared in the most area of Thai Nguyen province (159/180 administrative division units). Now, HIV infection has not only occurred in the most vulnerable people but also others in the community.
In the past time, HIV/AIDS Prevention has been attracted the involvements of Thai Nguyen Provincial authorities. Especially, some clubs on HIV/AIDS prevention such as Sun Flower Club, Bright Future Club has run some effective campaigns to raise the awareness of the community on this issue.
The meeting attracted many people, especially the elderly. Youths from Thai Nguyen University, the clubs and the Thai Nguyen HIV/AIDS Prevention Project have positively participated in the camp''s activities such as propagandizing, disseminating informational handouts. Mr. Nguyen Van Vuong highly appreciated the efforts of the women''s unions at all level on this issue and expected their more initiatives to improve the life of people living with HIV and AIDS (PLHIV).
On behalf of PLHIV, Ms. Nguyen Thi Hai Yen expressed her hope in more compassion and sympathy of the community to remove the stigma and discrimination to PLHIV.
