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Viet Nam, with a population of 77 million, has a Viet ethnic
majority with over 10 million ethnic minority people in the
Mekong Delta, Central Highlands, and Northern Uplands. The
country has enjoyed over 20 years of internal peace under
government by the Communist Party of Viet Nam.
At present,
Viet Nam has a concentrated HIV epidemic, mostly transmitted
through the sharing of needles during injecting drug use.
About 120,000 Vietnamese are infected with HIV; the number is
likely to increase to 197,000 by 2005. The three major
subepidemics are among (i) young male injecting drug users in
the north; (ii) young and older men and young women sex
workers in some large cities; and (iii) a few women who have
practiced sex work in the south.
Viet Nam does
not have a generalised, heterosexually transmitted epidemic.
HIV seroprevalence is high for injecting drug users including
those who are also sex workers. Among women who practice
street-based sex work and do not admit to injecting drug use,
rates vary from 1 percent to 12 percent. Rates among sex
workers in the hospitality industry are much lower. Military
recruit applicants have prevalence rates of 0.41 percent,
although some of them inject drugs.
Informal
internal migration is extensive, with Vietnamese sex workers
and laborers working in both Cambodia and the Lao PDR, as well
as in other Asian countries. Those with highest vulnerability
are debt-bonded Vietnamese women from the lower Mekong Delta
provinces who work in brothels in Phnom Penh and provincial
towns in Cambodia. Other migrant workers on construction sites
in Cambodia and the Lao PDR are also vulnerable.
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