The figures, revealed on May 26, were the findings of a private survey for Vietnam ’s fisheries sector, as part of a Fisheries Sector Programme supported by the Danish Government.
Addressing a seminar on the survey’s outcomes, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Vu Van Tam said that the results will be used by the ministry as a base for building a strategy on HIV/AIDS prevention for workers in the fisheries sector in the future.
Danish Ambassador to Vietnam Peter Lysholt Hansen said that HIV/AIDS could threaten the success of the fisheries sector in Vietnam by drawing on poor households’ limited funds for health care and ultimately, by removing family breadwinners and pushing households back into poverty.
The ambassador pledged that his country would continue supporting the fisheries sector in particular and Vietnam in general in the fight against the epidemic.
Do Thanh Nam, one of the survey’s key researchers, said that the survey has provided only “a snapshot” of the extent that HIV/AIDS is prevalent in the fisheries sector.
More than 2,350 workers aged between 18 and 60 in five provinces, including northern Son La and Quang Ninh, central Thua Thien-Hue, and southern An Giang and Ben Tre, were surveyed.