Treatment 2.0 Pilot in Vietnam—Early Progress and Challenges

Announced in 2010 at the International AIDS Conference in Vienna and pioneered by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the World Health Organization's (WHO) leadership at the global level, Treatment 2.0 is a new approach to the HIV response that encourages innovation, efficiency, and sustainability. Building upon WHO and UNAIDS' "3 by 5" Initiative, Treatment 2.0 focuses upon scale-up and universal access of life-saving ART treatment through strategic investments and innovations in five priority pillars that include: 1) Optimize drug regimens, 2) Provide point-of-care (POC) and other simplified diagnostic and monitoring tools, 3) Reduce costs, 4) Adapt service delivery, and 5) Mobilize communities [1-3]. The Treatment 2.0 approach is in line with UNAIDS' 2011-2015 Strategy: Getting to Zero with the vision of, "Zero New infections; Zero discrimination; and Zero AIDS-related deaths", and as well as the four strategic directions for the health sector response outlined under WHO's Global Health Sector Strategy on HIV/AIDS 2011-2015 [4,5]. At the Sixty-fourth World Health Assembly (WHA) in May 2011, it was formally announced that Vietnam has taken the leadership to pilot Treatment 2.0 in two of its provinces, with support from both the WHO and UNAIDS country offices [6,7]. Given that Vietnam is one of the few countries with a concentrated epidemic to pilot Treatment 2.0, the outcomes and experiences of this initiative can provide valuable insight to other countries who may consider implementation. The objectives of this article are therefore to: 1) Describe the early process for translating Treatment 2.0 concept in Vietnam's context; and 2) Highlight early progress and challenges.