Thanks to several readers who sent copies of the draft national HIV strategic plan to me. I will not post it as I understand that the draft is still not a public document. If it is not finalised before the end of the month it should be made available for public comment.

I have a couple of thoughts.

One is that migrants should not be included as a key population or a priority population or whatever euphemisms are used to put them near the top of the list. 1) There is no solid scientific evidence that migrants have higher HIV incidence or prevalence than other identifiable populations. 2) There are two many migrants to target successfully. And 3) Labelling migrants as a priority population causes stigma and discrimination against them. People who move about in Myanmar have enough problems without official negative labelling.

My second comment relates to the method used for prioritisation of townships. Mixing quantitative data, mostly based on poor case reporting, and qualitative data, heavily influenced by personal interests, results in nonsense. Better to just make a list and admit that it is imperfect.

Finally, it is good to see that over 100,000 people living with HIV are on treatment. Myanmar is now 'halfway there' in treatment access.

Jamie