Country Overview

These ARVs support over 17,500 people who are currently on treatment under PEPFAR.

Vietnam is the only country in Asia to be included in the US President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) program. The Government of Vietnam’s response to preventing HIV/AID prevention is guided by a national strategic plan, one that calls for mobilizing government, party, and community-level organizations across multiple sectors. According to UNAIDS HIV prevalence in Vietnam is estimated to about less than half of one percent of the population. In 2008, over 300,00 HIV cases were reported. The government’s target for patients antiretrovirals (ARVs) is 70 percent by 2010.

SCMS is working with the Vietnam Administration for AIDS Control (VAAC) at the Ministry of Health to improve HIV/AIDS efforts in two critical ways – distribution and dispensing of drugs. Since June 2006, we have delivered or committed to procure about $10.4 million in HIV and AIDS commodities, supporting sites in seven designated PEPFAR provinces, including Hanoi and Ho Chi Min City. These ARVs support over 17,500 people who are currently on treatment under PEPFAR. We are also training dispensers through workshops and site visits to shore up their role as key providers of drug treatment and strategic resources for patient information.

Key Objectives

• Improve data collection and information sharing: Better information drives coordinated, cost-effective decision-making.
• Build capacity in quantification, procurement and distribution: We help ensure that supply chain logistics across all supply chain system organizations are effectively managed and overseen, and build site capacity for storing and dispensing drugs, for laboratory systems to collect data and promote ordering, and for the clearing, warehousing, and distribution of drugs.
• Build capacity for site-level dispensers: We provide training to clinical site dispensers so patients receive high-quality, best-value health products and the information they need to properly adhere to their medications.

Activities and Impact

Value of commodities delivered as of February 2009: Over $10 million

Warehousing and distribution: SCMS is working with the Government of Vietnam to maintain a system to ensure that the PEPFAR-supported government sites in Vietnam receive continuous supplies of ARV medicines. This solution includes creating a site reporting system, a centralized data collection point, and a centralized warehousing and distribution system. We are also conducting workshops and one-on-one consultations to meet the training needs of pharmacists and nurses who distribute antiretrovirals (ARVs) to patients.

Procurement: Treating HIV/AIDS patients who are also injecting drug users is a major initiative by the government of Vietnam. UNAIDS cites heroin injection as the cause of 60 percent of the country’s estimated 300,000 HIV cases. In 2008, SCMS procured methadone for the country’s new methadone treatment program—marking the first time PEPFAR had provided methadone for an HIV treatment program. The effort required considerable coordination by SCMS, the Ministry of Health, and multiple partners.

Logistics management information system (LMIS): SCMS has worked with the Government of Vietnam to implement a central LMIS. Since September 2005, the number of ART sites receiving goods through the centralized system has expanded from 1 to 135. To date, the LMIS has reported that 14,600 patients are receiving ART and that antiretrovirals worth $9.1 million have been imported.