U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam Ted Osius on Friday visited an HIV/AIDS center in Ho Chi Minh City.

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While visiting the District 4 HIV/AIDS Center for Counseling and Community Support, Ambassador Osius talked with patients and health care workers on life and their work.

Besides appreciating the efforts and initiative by Vietnam in the prevention of and fight against HIV/AIDS, the diplomat stressed the important role of social support groups, which have long been an abundant, untapped resource.

According to the U.S. ambassador, there will be more and more countries which need medical assistance, especially in the fight against HIV/AIDS, in the future.

Therefore, Vietnam should actively use its own available resources to achieve the 90-90-90 objective of the United Nations, he added.

Your browser does not support the video tag. In particular, the use of peer education is one of the effective methods and affordable ways to combat HIV/AIDS.

In addition, the international community is always ready to support Vietnam, the diplomat said.

The 90-90-90 target set by the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS is to diagnose 90 percent of all people with HIV, provide antiretroviral therapy for 90 percent of those diagnosed and achieve undetectable HIV RNA for 90 percent of those under treatment by 2020.

The District 4 HIV/AIDS Center for Counseling and Community Support is one of the medical facilities in Vietnam supported by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The center supplies integrated comprehensive HIV/AIDS services to over 1,200 patients annually, including voluntary HIV counseling and testing, peer-outreach, care and treatment, and methadone maintenance therapy.

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