At the Medicines Patent Pool (MPP), our mission is simple yet vital — to ensure that the best medicines reach the people who need them most. Every licence we negotiate, every partnership we forge, and every treatment delivered is driven by one purpose: to help people live longer, healthier lives.

In Vietnam, more than 8 million packs of HIV treatment have been delivered through MPP’s voluntary licensing agreement with ViiV Healthcare for dolutegravir, transforming care for people across the country. Behind every one of those packs is a person, a family, a story.

Tran Thi Hue, Administrative Assistant at the Centre for Supporting Community Development Initiatives (SCDI), 10th November 2025 Photo credit: MPP/Marc Bader

This World AIDS Day, we are honoured to share the story of Tran Thi Hue, the Administrative Assistant at SCDI (the Centre for Supporting Community Development Initiatives). We met Hue at SCDI’s offices in Hanoi — where the organisation works closely with communities most affected by HIV, providing care, counselling, and opportunities to rebuild lives with dignity. Hue’s journey is one of courage, perseverance, and quiet hope — a reminder of why access matters, and why our collective work must continue.

I found out I was living with HIV in 2005, when my second son was a baby. Three years later, my husband passed away. I had two little boys then — my eldest, who was born deaf and mute, and my youngest, was born with HIV.

When we first learned of our HIV diagnosis, my husband couldn’t overcome the fear and stigma — not from society and not from within himself. He tried to take his own life. He survived, but he was never the same again. From that moment, I had to carry everything — taking care of the children, finding food, earning money, and buying his medicine. In 2006 and 2007, I was spending more than a million đồng every month just on treatment (around $60 at that time). It was an enormous amount. Without my parents helping to look after the children, I don’t think I would have survived.

When my baby was small, I noticed that he often got sick and had diarrhoea. I had a feeling, deep down, that he might also be infected, but I couldn’t bring myself to accept it. When the doctors confirmed it, my heart broke. It’s something no mother can ever be ready for. But I realised that I had to stay strong — for both of us.

I started HIV treatment in 2006. Back then, I didn’t know anything about side effects. I just thought, if there is medicine to help me live, that’s all that matters. Later, I experienced the side effects — my body changed shape, my arms and legs became thinner, and at one point I developed anaemia, I was on a stavudine– based regimen. Eventually, I was able to switch off stavudine which was no longer recommended because of these effects. I stayed on the next regimen until 2023, when I learned that it could affect the kidneys. I began to feel that myself — waking up often at night to urinate — and decided to switch to a newer, kidney-friendly medicine for both me and my son. In 2023 we started taking dolutegravir/emtricitabine/tenofovir alafenamide (TAF-ED).

The Centre for Supporting Community Development Initiatives (SCDI), 10th November 2025
Photo credit: MPP/Marc Bader

I first learned about SCDI in 2010, when they and the “For a Brighter Future” network of people living with HIV organised a beauty and talent contest. I joined just to take part — and to my surprise, I won. That win changed everything. It gave me confidence again, and it introduced me to Ms Oanh, the Executive Director of SCDI who later invited me to work at for them. Working there gave me not only a job but also a sense of purpose. I learned how to protect myself, and I had the chance to help others living with HIV, just like me.

For years, my son and I travelled every month from our hometown to the National Children’s Hospital in Hanoi for his check-ups and medicine. Later, we transferred his treatment to Hanoi permanently. When he was about 14, he stopped taking his medicine. I had already talked to him about his condition, but he couldn’t accept it. He kept asking, “Why do I have to take medicine? I’m not sick.”

I started to find pills hidden in little corners of the house — under furniture, in tiny cracks. For years, his viral load stayed high because he wasn’t taking his medicine regularly. Those were very painful years for me as a mother. You want to protect your child, but you can’t force understanding — it must come from inside.

With time, with care, and with the doctors’ support, he began to understand. Once he started taking his medicine again, his viral load became undetectable.

Now he’s 20. My eldest still needs my constant care, but both of my sons have grown. Life has never been easy, but it has always been full of love.

Photo credit: MPP/Marc Bader

For so many years, we’ve told each other to take our medicine on time every day — but it’s hard, even for me at my age. I dream of the day when long-acting injectable HIV treatment will be available in Vietnam. Injections every few months would change everything — no missed doses, no resistance, and life would be so much easier.

Many people think we’re fine, but they don’t see the hidden pain — the aching bones, the tired joints. I think 90% of people living with HIV live with this pain every day. We work, we care for our families, we keep going — even when it hurts. 

I’ve seen how a kind word, a home visit, or simply sharing what we’ve been through can give someone the courage to keep going. My work there has helped me heal too — it makes me feel that my experience has meaning. At SCDI, we work closely with people living with HIV and other vulnerable groups — supporting them with treatment, counselling, and opportunities to rebuild their lives, just as I have rebuilt mine.

My dream today is simply to have peace. At this point in my life, I often tell myself that throughout all the years I’ve lived and fought to survive, there hasn’t been a single day when I truly felt completely at ease — truly at peace with life, with family, with everything.

So sometimes I dream that one day, when my children are fully grown and independent, I can return to my hometown to live quietly. I won’t have to struggle anymore. I’ll have time for myself, to have my own garden — time to rest, to breathe. And I’ll have time to see my children, to be with them, to watch them grow, to see them start families of their own.

That’s what I’ve always wished for — a simple, peaceful life surrounded by the people I love. 

Hue’s story is a reflection of the strength and resilience found in communities everywhere. It reminds us that access to treatment is not just about science or supply chains — it’s about dignity, stability, and the right to live fully.

This World AIDS Day, we reaffirm our commitment to ensuring that everyone, everywhere can access the medicines they need to live healthy, fulfilling lives — and to ensuring that every person living with HIV can tell their story, just as Hue has told hers.