Site Visits

One of the great things about being a fellow is that I can go out to the field with the technical staff to see different projects. Here are a few pictures!!

District 10 Outpatient Clinic (OPC). We went out to see if we could do a renovation (see other posts).

The staff from USAID invited me to go to a grand opening of another OPC. I'm glad I didn't have to make any speeches but I did have to stand up and be recognized as representing CDC. This is one of those moments that was a little sureal because I've always wanted to work overseas with CDC and here I am...

Then I went with Dr. Son, the care and treatment Project Officer to an AIDS hospital that used to be an 06 center. It was 5 hours away but well worth the trip. You can't see the bars in this picture but there were huge bars on each of the doors, a remnant of the 06 center that it used to be. It was interesting to see the progression of illness throughout each residence area. Some were still recovering drug addicts and some were dying of AIDS. Either way it is a sobering picture of what heroine does to people. Today I went to the closest 06 center to Ho Chi Minh City. The 06 centers were created as a sort of "rehab" place for IDU (injection drug users). I'm actually not sure how many are in Vietnam but most of them do not look like this. The residents are taken off the streets and put in these facilities for 2-5 years. Imagine putting a huge high risk group in a concentrated area-- according to the Project Officer the prevalence of HIV among these men is 40-60%. While I have a really hard time believing it is that high none the less it is significant si nce the prevelance in Vietnam is only 0.5%.

In the US when we think about HIV/AIDS we mostly think about Africa and/or associate the disease with risk groups such as MSM (men who have sex with men) , CSW (comercial sex workers), and other people who engage in risky sexual behaviours. Well here in Vietnam the largest at risk population is by far the IDU. But it's tricky... and I'll leave it at that for right now!