The workshop, funded by the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) through the Community Advocacy Initiatives Project Vietnam, aims to raise awareness of issues faced by sero-discordant couples – where one partner is HIV-positive and the other is HIV-negative. 

The majority of HIV-negative partners in these couples are women, and most are faced with many healthcare problems and are vulnerable to infection. 

While people living with HIV seem to receive more and more attention from society in recent years, their sex partners appear to be forgotten and do not have a strong voice of their own, said Khuat Thi Hai Oanh, director of the Centre for Supporting Community Development Initiatives. 

According to a study conducted by the Institute for Social Development Studies and the Vietnam Civil Society Partnership Platform on AIDS in 2009, among 1,300 males living with HIV who took part in the survey, nearly 50 percent are living with a HIV-negative partner. 

Another survey of 307 HIV-negative partners of people living with HIV conducted by the Centre for Supporting Community Development Initiatives found that 90 percent of these HIV-negative partners are women.

Out of all survey respondents, only 18 percent said they were informed of their partner's HIV status before making the decision to commit to the relationship. 

Most of them did not make the choice to have a positive partner, but decided to stick with their partner because of a strong emotional attachment.

Some of the HIV-positive partners were not aware of their own status before the relationship started and some became infected while they were already living together with their partners. 

According to Chris Fontaine, Partnerships Adviser of UNAIDS Vietnam, there is growing evidence that most HIV-positive women were infected by their intimate partners. 

Vietnamese women, Fontaine said, are widely perceived as being responsible for contraception, but many have a limited say on reproductive issues in their relationships. 

Some women, however, hesitate taking a HIV test and have to be persuaded to go to a hospital for a test. 

Both negative sex partners and researchers at the workshop called for more attention from the government and society on HIV-negative partners.