HIV Digest	HIV Digest Archive

According to activists and local media, a new law may allow the sale of condoms in Vietnamese guesthouses next year. Although condoms themselves are legal in Vietnam, police often cite possession of a condom as evidence in prostitution cases. According to the online newspaper VNExpress, police oppose a pilot project distributing condoms to guesthouses in Hanoi's Long Bien district.

The newspaper quoted Ministry of Health official Mguyen Huy Quang as saying a new law passed by the National Assembly, set to take effect January 1, 2007, mandates harm-reduction programs that include distributing condoms to sex workers and providing clean needles to intravenous drug users.

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This is the result of a long process of changing the opinion that loosening management over condoms is the same as accepting prostitution," said Quang.

The program will target Vietnam's thousands of "nha nghi" or "rest houses," which can be rented by the hour. Quang said preventing HIV-transmission takes precedence over combating prostitution and drug use, which Vietnam terms "social evils." More than 100,000 Vietnamese are HIV-positive, and more than 10,000 have died of AIDS.

Nevertheless, police in the district have reiterated that condom possession is still grounds for arrest.

-- from Deutsche Presse Agentur