Vietnam and doctors battling the spread of AIDS welcomed the inclusion of the Southeast Asian country in Washington’s $15 billion plan to combat the disease globally, saying it would help curb a crisis in the making.

U.S. officials said President George W. Bush will designate Vietnam on Wednesday as one of 15 “focus countries” eligible to share in the $15 billion, bypassing harder-hit China and India. The other 14 countries are in Africa or the Caribbean.

“Vietnam hails the decision by President George W. Bush. This is an effort to cooperate with other nations in the fight against the disease of the century,” a statement by Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Dung said on Wednesday.

Once Vietnam is designated, the United States can sharply increase funding to nongovernment organisations (NGOs) that provide AIDS services there.

“It’s very good news indeed,” Dr Le Dang Ha, director of the National Institute for Clinical Research in Tropical Medicine, the country’s leading HIV/AIDS prevention agency, told Reuters.

DKT International, an NGO that has sold subsidised condoms in Vietnam for 11 years, expressed surprise at Vietnam’s selection and said it hoped funds would used for advocating condom usage. It sold 45 million of the prophylactics last year in Vietnam.

Unlike Africa where upwards of 30 percent of populations are HIV positive, “one of the problems here is that no one sees HIV/AIDS,” said Larry Holzman, DKT’s country director.

“We’re asking people to protect themselves against a disease that no one can see.”

The communist country says it has around 81,000 reported HIV/AIDS cases, a relatively modest proportion of its population of 81 million. By contrast, northern neighbour China has an estimated 1 million to 1.5 million HIV/AIDS cases on the mainland.

STIGMATISED BY SOCIETY

But Ha believes the number of HIV/AIDS infections in Vietnam is at least four times higher, at around 300,000. As in many other countries, victims are stigmatised by society and often attempt to hide their condition.

“This kind of funding before it (AIDS) gets out of control is a very wise thing,” said Dr Hans Troedsson, Vietnam representative of the U.N.‘s World Health Organisation.

The choice of Vietnam is considered controversial by some. Since the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, Hanoi and Washington have clashed over human rights and the U.S. Congress has considered cutting or limiting aid over the issue.

But Troedsson said America might get more for its money in Vietnam. “I think they realised that Vietnam has a lot of potential to absorb financial resources like this. They have a national strategy on HIV/AIDS, which is very comprehensive.”

Vietnam and the United States have been implementing three HIV/AIDS projects through development agency USAID with assistance funds of $29 million.

Experts in Vietnam have been sounding the alarm over the increasing numbers of young people getting infected.

State media said more than 60 percent of Vietnam’s HIV/AIDS patients are aged between 20 and 29 and that as of May this year, 7,200 had died of the disease.

About 80 percent of Vietnam’s HIV infections are through intravenous drug users, mostly heroin. About 10 to 15 percent are by sexual transmission, mainly sex workers.

The government plans to spend 80 billion dong ($5.1 million) this year to battle the disease but Ha said less than 10 percent would be spent on medicines.

He said foreign grants to fight HIV/AIDS totalled $10 million last year. “What we desperately need is money to buy medicines for the infected patients,” Ha said.