• by IPS Correspondents (bangkok)
• Wednesday, November 23, 1994
• Inter Press Service

BANGKOK, Nov 23 (IPS) - Thailand is acknowledged to have one of the most successful AIDS education campaign in the world, but reports from the field indicate that the dreaded disease is still raging out of control in much of the country.

More than 10,000 people in the Thai capital of Bangkok alone are infected with the HIV virus, which causes AIDS, says the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration's (BMA) health department.

In a report released this week, the BMA's epidemiological division also confirmed that 895 patients have full-blown AIDS, 510 are suffering from AIDS-related Complex (ARC) and 300 are symptomatic HIV-infected patients.

Of this number, 89.80 percent were male and 10.20 percent female. Their ages range from 25 to 39 years, with the greatest concentration between 30 to 34 years old.

Sixty-four percent were infected through sexual contact while 18 percent were contaminated through sharing intravenous needles.

Thailand has been the worst hit among Asian countries facing a serious AIDS problem -- including India and Burma -- with the virus having clearly moved into the general population since it was first detected in 1987. One person in a hundred, or 600,000 people, is now believed to be carrying the virus in Thailand.

In the last few months, NGOs engaged in work to combat the AIDS crisis have focused attention on the northern Thai province of Chiang Rai near the Burmese border where three people are said to die of AIDS every two days. The provincial public health office estimates the actual death rate at three times higher.

Thais are being infected by HIV at the rate of 500 a day, according to the privately run Population Development Association (PDA). At least 8,000 Thais had developed ARC symptoms and half of them had already died of AIDS, the PDA said.

Experts say that one-third of people with ARC -- which include symptoms such intermittent fever, diarrhoea, drastic weight loss, swelling of lymph nodes, fatigue and night sweat -- develop AIDS within five years.

The strategies to prevent AIDS in Thailand are the same as those that have worked in other parts of the world: teaching people how to avoid the virus sexually, largely through condom promotion, and treating venereal diseases which make the virus spread more easily.

© Inter Press Service (2014) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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