Vu Thi Tuong Vi, MPH, From Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, received a bachelor’s degree in Sociology in 1999 from the Social Science and Humanities University, HCMC. She then joined the Ho Chi Minh City AIDS Committee as Head of the Drug Addiction Treatment Program and Deputy Head of the Harm Reduction Department for seven years. During this time, her team was responsible for planning, implementing and monitoring Addiction Treatment programs such as administering Methadone, addiction treatment counseling, the recovery support group, case management for the patient’s family to reduce stigma and discrimination.
After obtaining her Master in Public Health from Flinders University, Australia, she consulted for the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs (MOLISA) to develop an operational Manual for community-based drug addiction treatment. In 2015, she joined the HIV-Addiction Technology Transfer Center at the University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Ho Chi Minh City as Master Counselor trainer and Coordinator. During this time, she mostly focused on the workforce’s pre- and in service development based on evidence in Vietnam and interventions using evidence-based practices, especially for the most vulnerable groups such as women who were injecting drug users. Currently, she also research coordinator for study funded by NIH namely “ Sreen, Treat and Retain Meth-using people with OUD at methadone clinic” in HCMC (R01DA050486)
She also has consulted for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Vietnam in developing training with a focus on women substance-users and using evidence-based intervention to address HIV among stimulant-users in Vietnam
She has done research in applying and/or increasing the quality of services, providing evidence-based and comprehensive services for LGBTs, SUDs and HIV patients and the provision of methadone treatment, especially in the context of reduced funding from international donors.
At policy level, her work advocated seeing people with SUD, who have a long history of misunderstanding in Vietnam, as patients rather than as a social evil.