Here is an excellent summary posted on the Forum of the website NGOs in the Golden Land.
********************************
The 8th international congress on AIDS in Asia and Pacific (19-23 August) was participated by about 2400 delegates. Some sections were very interesting, some are so so and a couple of presenters were not good.
Good and bad things I learnt about Myanmar are:
• HIV prevalence in Myanmar is declining after the peak in 2002. ( According to 2003-2004 surveillance data, it was 1.3% among 15 to 25 years youth)
• Only one in 10 people who need ART has access to it. (According to the presentation by a Thai Epidemiologist, 1 out of 3 people living with HIV/AIDS in Myanmar needs ART, a high proportion, isn’t it? I think number of people who have HIV/AIDS in Myanmar, according to his Asia Epidemic Model is a bit low and resulting a high proportion)
• Available funding to address HIV/AIDS in 2007 is 28 million and estimated budget to implement NSP in 2007 is almost 42 million. (Most of the countries in the region or over the world nowadays do not need to worry about funding because they have enough supports. They are struggling to spend the money they got effectively. Myanmar is still struggling to get its minimal requirement. Why? )
• They classified the level of Myanmar leaders’ commitment to HIV/AIDS issue is low (If I am not mistaken, there is just another country in the region whose commitment is also low. But HIV prevalence in Myanmar is much higher than that country)
• I met many Myanmar delegates this time and few youth delegates were also there. I met one Buddhist monk, one Catholic nun, a bunch of people from positive community and a transgender from Myanmar.
I attended some other sections and frankly I did not understand some of the terminologies some presenters used. One of the presenters mentioned ex MSM to address a question, I don't know, is there such a thing? ex MSM? One presenter classifed women who married again after their husbands died as polygamists. To me, polygamy means having more than one sexual partners at the same time. I don't know. Maybe I just don't know. Anyway, it was an interesting expereince.
http://www.ngoinmyanmar.org/index.php?option=com_fireboard&Itemid=143&func=view&id=912&catid=21
