This week [him] will be posting some of the presentations from the two day Burma Border Bash recently concluded in Bangkok. The conference was subsidised by taxpayer dollars so you have a right to the information presented.
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Experts Call for Improved Health Care along Burma's Borders
Sai Silp
Irrawaddy
26 January 2007
International health experts meeting in Bangkok have called for greater efforts to combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases prevalent in border areas of Burma.
Chris Beyrer, of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told a concluding press conference on Friday that the current health problems in border areas, exacerbated by a humanitarian crisis, had significant implications for countries neighboring Burma.
The press briefing followed a two-day conference titled "Responding to Infectious Diseases in the Border Regions of South and Southeast Asia," which was organized by The Human Rights Center at the University of California Berkeley, the Center for Health and Human Rights at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and the Global Health Access Program.
About 200 government medical experts, local NGOs, health workers, representatives of health donors and researchers gathered to discuss and share information on the health situation on Burma's borders with Thailand, Bangladesh, India and China. Discussion focused on HIV/AIDS, malaria, avian influenza, anthrax, filariasis, Japanese encephalitis, as well as the issues of drug use and human rights abuses that affect health, such as rape and forced relocation by the military.
Beyrer said some ceasefire groups in Burma were producing methamphetamines, causing "higher sexual disease risks and social problems in neighboring Thailand."
Tom Lee, of the Global Health Access Program, told the conference that in the India-Burma border regions of Nagaland, Mizoram and Manipur, about 8 percent of pregnant women suffered from HIV/AIDS, higher than anywhere in India. Lack of information made prevention and treatment difficult, he said.
Voravit Suwanvanichkij, a researcher at Johns Hopkins University, said about 10 percent of ethnic people living in the border area between Burma's Karen State and Thailand's Tak Province were suffering from malaria because they had been forced to flee to the forests by the Burmese military.
The situation along the Burmese-Chinese border was better than elsewhere, he said, because China's provincial Yunnan government and local Kachin ethnic organization were working together systematically to combat HIV/AIDS.
Speakers complained that restrictions imposed by the Burmese government, and a lack of co-operation, hampered the work of aid groups in border areas, making it difficult to assess the true situation. Local people were being denied a basic human right by being denied access to medical treatment, they said. "Everybody should have the right to access medical services," said Beyrer.
The press conference concluded with a call for more surveillance and information- collecting, collaboration and resources, with funding from international donors and governments. Speakers called on the Burmese government to open up the country to aid groups and researchers. The issue should also be of concern to the UN Security Council and Asean, they stressed.
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