Thailand Blazes Trail in AIDS Fight

Addressing the needs and rights of people with HIV/AIDS is the subject of a major conference this week in the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai. More than 2,000 activists, researchers, public health officials and AIDS patients are expected to attend the four-day international conference on Home and Community Care for People Living with HIV/AIDS. This is the first time the conference has been held in Asia, and the venue chosen recognizes some of the community-based initiatives undertaken in Thailand, where 1 million people are thought to have contracted HIV.

Thailand's record in tackling one of Asia's earliest and most severe AIDS epidemics is frequently cited as an example of what imaginative and sensitive policies can achieve. When AIDS took hold in Thailand in the early 1990s, the state medical system was quickly overwhelmed. Authorities turned to religious and other non-governmental groups for help in caring for the growing number of infected people. This bold move helped to spread the burden of care through the community and to reduce the deep stigma attached to the illness.

The meeting comes as HIV/AIDS begins to conquer new territory in Asia. Health officials say the epidemic is now entering Indonesia and northern Vietnam, while the situation in Burma (Myanmar) is thought to be far worse than the government there has acknowledged. Thailand is coming to terms with the fact that HIV/AIDS is again on the rise, threatening sectors of society that were previously largely untouched.

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