Vietnam, which is using methadone, a synthetic narcotic, as a therapeutic tool to rehabilitate drug addicts on trial basis in two cities in the 2007-2008 period, will extend the trial to six more localities in 2009, according to local newspaper Youth on Monday.
The country's Health Ministry has recently permitted a foreign-funded project on using methadone on pilot basis to rehabilitate 1,500 local drug addicts in northern Hai Phong city and southern Ho Chi Minh city.
Under the pilot project funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development and the UK Department for International Development, methadone is given to the addicts. When being withdrawn from methadone after a certain period of taking the drug orally, they will undergo methadone withdrawal instead of the more severe heroin withdrawal.
Vietnam has recently paid greater attention to the methadone therapy, which has been conducted in many countries, including Australia, the United States, the Netherlands, India, Myanmar, France and China for years, partly because it wants to curb the spread of HIV/AIDS among infected narcotics addicts who often use the same injecting equipment like syringes.
According to many foreign and local experts, methadone maintenance, being oral, breaks the dangerous ritual of intravenous injection, and eliminates the addict's need to commit crimes to pay for drugs.
Vietnam, as of late 2006, had detected a total of 160,226 drug addicts, over 70 percent of whom are in the age bracket of 18-35, according to statistics from the country's Ministry of Public Security. Vietnam and other members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) hope to achieve a drug-free region by 2015.
By Aug. 30, Vietnam had detected over 128,367 HIV carriers, including 25,219 AIDS patients, of whom, 14,042 died, according to the ministry's latest statistics.
The country plans to reduce the HIV/AIDS infection rate among its 84-million population to below 0.3 percent by 2010, and keep it unchanged after 2020.
Source: Xinhua
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