Many Vietnamese didn't worry about the deadly epidemic--until a popular show woke them up

By TIM LARIMER /HANOI

ietnam's closed borders kept out many things during the 1980s, like CNN, chewing gum and kung-fu videos. Isolation also blocked the entry of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. But when the country started easing open its doors a decade ago, and the AIDS epidemic began to take off in nearby Thailand and Cambodia, it was clear Vietnam wouldn't remain HIV-free for long. Health-care professionals realized they had to alert the Vietnamese that they, too, were vulnerable. But how?

Maria showed the way. In 1994, many Vietnamese were hooked on one of the first television imports from overseas, a Mexican series about a fashion designer named Maria. Every Sunday night for more than a year, life came to a standstill as people sat transfixed following the tribulations of Maria, her boyfriends and business rivals trying to do her in. "Everybody was talking about Maria the morning after it was on," said Dr. Ngo Thi Khanh, a health project officer at CARE International Vietnam. So an idea was born: produce a Vietnamese soap opera and slip in a story line with sympathetic HIV-positive characters. CARE got funding from the European Union and technical assistance from Australia and began, in 1996, taping episodes of the show Wind Blows Through Dark and Light.

"I was hesitant at first," said 41-year-old Hanoi actor Trong Trinh. He had to be persuaded to play the part of Hung, a mechanic who contracts HIV from an old girlfriend whose husband was a drug addict. "I was afraid that if I acted well people would think I was so convincing that I must really be an AIDS victim," says Trinh. That's exactly what happened to 25-year-old Linh Hue, who plays Hau, a young woman from the countryside. She tests HIV-positive after having an affair with a philandering truck driver. "There were rumors in my home village that I had AIDS," says Hue, whose parents had to explain to neighbors that the serial on TV was fiction and their daughter was simply acting. "When I went home people were relieved to see I was healthy."

The challenge for Vietnam, and for the show, was to reverse some early propaganda: that AIDS was a disease spread by foreigners, that the only people at risk were prostitutes and drug users. A continuing campaign against what Vietnam calls "social evils" still lumps AIDS with vices such as gambling and pornography. That is why the soap opera, which will air twice-weekly episodes until mid-June, features HIV-positive characters leading normal, respectable lives.

The rate of infection among Vietnam's 76 million people is still small. Officially, 8,071 people are HIV-positive, and 639 have died of AIDS-related complications. Since testing is done on a limited scale, the true numbers are thought to be much higher. But stepped-up monitoring of pregnant women, prostitutes, Army recruits and drug addicts suggests that the prevalence of HIV is lower than once feared. An aggressive Vietnamese birth-control policy, which encourages condom ads on TV, has indirectly curbed HIV. "Vietnam is not going the way of Thailand," where 900,000 people harbor the virus, says a Western physician working on AIDS projects in Vietnam.

But the Vietnamese can't relax, since conditions are still ripe for spread of the disease. Heroin use among teens and young people is rising, prostitution is rampant, and sex education usually is restricted to bromides about the value of two-child families. "We are face to face with a serious epidemic," says Chung-A, vice chairman of the National AIDS Committee. As in other countries, the disease has moved from high-risk groups to the general population. Four years ago drug addicts accounted for 80% of HIV cases; now they comprise just 65%. The virus has moved geographically as well. Before 1995, nearly all of the HIV cases were in Ho Chi Minh City and the southern provinces. Since then 57 of the country's 61 provinces have been hit.

To Vietnam's credit, some of its officials have decided to fight the disease before the epidemic worsens. The National AIDS Committee was recently elevated to ministerial-level status, and in March, Deputy Prime Minister Pham Gia Khiem told delegates at a health conference that everyone was at risk of contracting HIV. "Five years ago, officials dismissed AIDS as a problem in Ho Chi Minh City," says a health-care worker in Vietnam. "Now they are admitting it's a problem in the North, too."

And a TV soap opera is helping people take the problem seriously. So far, 14 of 30 episodes of Wind Blows Through Dark and Light have aired. They have been popular--and perhaps effective. A 21-year-old university student from Haiphong who watches the show admits that until recently, he and his fellow students were sexually promiscuous. "Now we're afraid of getting AIDS," he says. "Nobody goes out to play anymore."