Here is a plea for better journalistic practice and an example of such.
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Health Workers Call for Greater Media Focus on HIV/AIDS
Shah Paung
Irrawaddy
24 November 2006
Media should play a greater role in raising awareness of the threat of HIV/AIDS, according to health workers attending a conference in Chiang Mai, Thailand on Friday.
Dr Myat Htoo Razak, a Burmese physician and HIV/AIDS researcher told a gathering of journalists and health workers at the HIV/AIDS Reporting in the Mekong Region conference that the media needs to be more thorough in reporting on the disease and obtaining information from health specialists.
He added that journalists should find ways of reporting research and treatment developments in ways that will attract the attention of their audiences, while also considering efforts to educate the public about the disease.
“The important thing is they [media] should talk about what people can do about HIV/AIDS,” he said.
An emphasis on how the media can help educate people about prevention and treatment, according to Myat Htoo Razak, is missing from reporting inside Burma and within exile Burmese media organizations.
“The media is weak on this subject,” Myat Htoo Razak told The Irrawaddy on Friday. “I don’t mean to suggest that AIDS stories should run all the time, but that they should be more thorough and should have an impact on people.”
The one-day conference, attended by 30 media representatives as well as health researchers, also addressed the issues of gathering information from patients and finding ways to support those who suffer from the disease.
The conference follows the release of the latest UN AIDS update on November 21, which said that nearly 40 million people worldwide are living with the disease. Among those, 2.9 million have developed full-blown cases of the disease, while 4.3 million became infected with HIV, the precursor virus to the disease.
East and Central Asia, as well as Eastern Europe, were cited in the report as areas where the spread of the virus has increased.
http://www.irrawaddy.org/aviewer.asp?a=6421&print=yes&c=e
HTM: the silent killers in Mon State
(Reported by Gong Ong and Lita Davidson: World AIDS Day, December 1, 2006)
In observance of the 19th commemoration of World AIDS Day today activists around the world are working at the local level to build a comprehensive approach in fighting AIDS. But a region in Mon State , Lower Burma , is cut off from the outside world and rarely hears what developments are taking place internationally. Few local people will know of the World Health Organization’s funding initiative where millions of dollars of aid is being doled out to combat the disease.
Senior leaders of Burma ’s State Peace and Development Council will deliver speeches to mark the day in the new capital Naypyidaw or in Yangon claiming they will combat the disease as outlined in their Master Strategic Plan to enhance and expand AIDS prevention and control programmes throughout the country. Burma will receive US $99.5 million in foreign aid to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, the deadly trio of diseases that killed 5. 7 million people worldwide in 2004 and, the three leading causes of death in Burma . This new aid package is to fill the gap left by the exit of the Global Fund last year because of too many restrictions imposed by the SPDC on aid workers.
According to the World Health Organization and as demonstrated by Africa, to make any progress in such programs health workers need to work from the ground up with the local communities and its procedures and operations need to be transparent. To combat malaria, tuberculosis, and AIDS effectively, community leaders who understand community concerns need to recruit the local people, for example, mothers, fathers, brothers, and sisters, who would play a vital role in treatment and prevention. Encouraging ownership in implementing prevention, educational awareness, and treatment programs are measures that are the most effective and positive way to ensure a sustainable success in fighting infectious diseases, especially in remote areas that need to be tackled at all levels. This is being done worldwide to produce practical methods at the local level in treating the three killer pandemics.
But the majority of Burma ’s population in both the rural and urban areas are poorly informed about AIDS and lack any capacity building programs or a community health network which are critical to strengthen the ‘collective response’ in prevention and intervention.
The population of Monland in lower Burma is estimated to be around 4 million and is believed to have higher rates of AIDS cases in the region according to reports by local health workers. On April 6, 2004, Kaowao reported that hospital blood tests recorded over one thousand individuals being infected with AIDS/HIV in Ye township, a community of migrant workers.
After two years no progress has been seen and many believe its getting worse. Locals say the situation may be out of control, but it is difficult to monitor and there is no access for people to get treatment, no accurate statistics are being kept which are critical for monitoring, with many suffering alone and afraid of speaking up due to social stigma. Some have died in the villages due to financial problems without ever having been to a clinic. Besides Northern Ye, there are other big communities in Mon State that have no preventive education programs on AIDS.
“It is not easy to get the right figures and education on AIDS is rarely given out in the community even though they have experience of death from this disease. Thousands of local people, most of them are women, could be HIV positive through their spouse who work in the neighbouring countries as migrant workers”, said Soe Mon, a local medic from Durae.
A young widow women who was struggling to survive, who had never been outside of her village, died of AIDS in March this year. Her husband who worked in Thailand died in 2002 at home and her children are orphans taken care of by the community.
“It is very unfortunate that an innocent woman died without knowing about this problem. The local community now realize that AIDS is a deadly disease and are becoming more concerned, but it is only a gossip among the community and there is no education on how to prevent and treat it,” Soe added.
These communities need immediate access through empowerment and design intervention that considers the needs of a migrant worker community.
Northern Ye Township of Mon State captures the magnitude of the problem. A medic from Kawdut said many people contracted HIV from their husbands who worked in Singapore and Malaysia . Most of them have died from the disease leaving their widows infected and alone to bring up their children.
Many villages have benefited from migrant laborers, where they send money back home to boast the local economy. However, some have died from AIDS and most likely have spread the disease to their spouses.
There is no official statistics on this problem and some activist estimated, northern Ye township and Thanbyu Zayat is the most HIV infected area in the region because many people in these areas work as migrant labourers, a high risk population that moves around a lot and visits brothel houses for pleasure.
The Mons from Burma only learn of family planning and education on AIDS when they arrive in Thailand where systematic measures to fight AIDS have been in force in years. But even there only a few publications on STD and family planning ever reach the many hundreds of communities where many thousands of young Mon live. Many workers do not understand Thai and publication in Mon language is not available.
http://www.kaowao.org/News.121.php?#7
Sumit Punnakari, who heads Humanitarian Assistance and Reconciliation Project (HARP) in Thailand says, "Burmese migrants know little about it due to a lack of HIV/AIDS education in Burma and among migrant communities in Thailand . AIDS is a real threat to humanity and Mon people are no exception. We have to fight this cruel battle without choice and we must overcome it."
Large migrant communities have no services and are often discriminated against and, arrive from Burma with little education. In Mahachai on the outskirts of Bangkok , for example, where large communities of Mons live in Thailand , estimated at 100,000 people, little or no education is given out and are increasingly at risk of contracting the disease because there are no services in the community.
"There is a lot more to do for pubic education on AIDS. There should be grass-roots campaigns to achieve better results,” said a Mon Unity league representative based in Bangkok . He is convinced that more education and prevention programs are needed in major population areas, especially villages with a high percentage of migrant workers. Especially more information on HIV prevention, HIV testing, HIV/AIDS care, living with HIV/AIDS, treatment, and orphan care. These measures need to be implemented now, as a Nigerian AIDS worker succinctly put it: “Kill or be killed.”
