Former U.S. President Bill Clinton returned to Vietnam on Friday to examine the implementation of the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) funded by the Clinton Foundation that aims to prevent tuberculosis among children with HIV. This is Clinton’s fourth visit to Vietnam since 2000. During the one-day visit, the ex-U.S. President is scheduled to meet Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang and Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung in Hanoi on Friday morning, and visit the Center for Care of Children with HIV in the capital’s Ba Vi District in the afternoon, the Vietnamese Ministry of Health said.

The visit is the second leg of the former U.S President’s trip covering eight countries, including India, Vietnam, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Australia, from July 16 to 23.

As shown on the website of the Clinton Foundation, the trip highlights Clinton’s longstanding commitment to the Asia/Pacific region, as well as the work of the Clinton Foundation on a number of issues that are critical to the area, including global health and improved access to medicines; climate change; and economic development.

The CHAI is a global health organization committed to strengthening integrated health systems in the developing world and expanding access to care and treatment for HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, according to the Global Health Corps. 

Before arriving in Vietnam, Clinton visited India on July 16-17. He is expected to attend the 20th International AIDS Conference in Melbourne, Australia on July 23.

Clinton visited Vietnam for the first time in November 2000. His visit was the first by a U.S. President since the two countries normalized diplomatic relations in 1995, 20 years after the Vietnam War ended. The former president made the second visit to Vietnam on December 5-6, 2006 within the framework of his visit to some Asian countries to strengthen cooperation under the CHAI program of the Clinton Foundation. Four years later, he returned to Vietnam on November 14, 2010 on the 15th anniversary of the normalization of the Vietnam-U.S. relations. The third visit was aimed at strengthening the bilateral relations and cooperation in a number of fields including trade, health, climate change and security.   He also had a talk with students at the Hanoi Foreign Trade University during that visit.

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