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Asia strives to control epidemic

India is now swamped with the second largest number of HIV-infected people, and the disease is menacing populations in Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand and other Asian countries.

UNICEF, other UN agencies, national governments and NGOs have initiated several programmes to combat this epidemic.

• In Cambodia, efforts are being made to build capacity among regional and local organizations with access to high-risk populations to develop and maintain prevention and care programmes targeted at primary, secondary and vocational school students, out of school youth, women of reproductive age, women and children living with HIV/AIDS and to the media.
• In Thailand, which has one of Asia’s most mature epidemics with close to 755,000 people living with HIV/AIDS, child-friendly community schools have been created to promote health, psychosocial development and resilience for children and youth affected by HIV/AIDS.
• Myanmar is considered to have one of the fastest growing HIV/AIDS epidemics in Asia, with an estimated 530,000 people infected. A programme called SHAPE (school-based healthy living and HIV/AIDS prevention education project) is under way to address this grave problem.

A project on the social marketing of condoms, run by Population Services International, is helping expand knowledge on HIV prevention and the availability of condoms throughout the country. But its outreach is still very limited. Inadequate support from donors and the Myanmar government’s own ambivalent attitude regarding the seriousness of the HIV/AIDS epidemic are leading to efforts that are not commensurate with the magnitude of the problem.

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