The World Food Programme is a cosponsor of UNAIDS. But the Programme's Myanmar Food Security website is outdated. WFP calls the country Burma. It publishes 2005 data on prevalance. It has strange geographic information. It calls people living with HIV "HIV/AIDS patients" . It says "Figures on infected populations in Myanmar are unknown". etc.
Will someone in the UN system of organisations please tell WFP to fix its website?
[him] moderator
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HIV / AIDS
Prevalence and populations at risk
HIV/AIDS in Burma (or Myanmar), recognised as a disease of concern by the Ministry of Health, is most prevalent among sex workers and intravenous drug users. In 2005, the estimated adult HIV prevalence rate in Burma was 1.3% (200,000 - 570,000 people), according to UNAIDS, and early indicators show that the epidemic may be waning in the country, although the epidemic continues to expand.However, the National AIDS Programme Burma found that 32% of sex workers and 43% of intravenous drug users in Burma have HIV. The national government, in 2005, spent USD$137,120 (K150,831,600) on HIV, while international donors (the governments of Norway, the Netherlands, United Kingdom, and Sweden) donated USD$27,711,813 towards HIV programmes in Burma. Burma (ranked 51 out of 166 countries) has one of Asia's highest adult HIV prevalence rates, following Cambodia and Thailand. An estimated 20,000 (range of 11,000 to 35,000) die from HIV/AIDS annually.
In geographic terms, the lowest rates of HIV were in the West (Rakhine State and Chin State), while intermediate rates were in the central region (Mandalay Division, Magwe Division, Sagaing Division, Bago Division), and the highest infection rates were in the North (Kachin State), East (Shan State, Kayin State), and South (Mon State, Tanintharyi Division).
Four different strains of HIV are believed to have originated from Burma, along heroin trafficking routes in northern, eastern and western Burma.
Government action
The Ministry of Health began surveying for HIV/AIDS in Burma in 1985. The first HIV case in Burma was reported in 1988, and the first AIDS patient in Burma was reported in 1991. Surveillance for HIV began the following year, and a prevention of mother-to-child transmission programme subsequently began in 2000. In 2005, antiretroviral [Currently, AIDS is one of the priority diseases in the National Health Plan. On 18 August 2005, the The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis & Malaria terminated its USD$98,400,000 grant (USD$19,200,000 towards HIV/AIDS) in Burma after the national government imposed restrictions on travel of its staff, which contradicted earlier written agreements. therapy was introduced to the public sector, although only 3% of HIV/AIDS patients currently receive such treatment.
Awareness
Among women aged 15-49 in Myanmar, 88.4 percent have heard of AIDS. This percentage is very high in urban areas (93 percent) and somewhat lower in rural areas (87 percent). During a UNICEF study, 60 percent of respondents said that using a condom every time one has sex can prevent HIV transmission and 64 percent agreed that abstaining from sex prevents HIV transmission. Overall, 46 percent knew three main ways and 82 percent were aware of at least one of the means of preventing transmission. Accurate knowledge of the means of HIV/AIDS transmission is substantially less among women in the Rakhine and Shan (East) than among other women. Education is a major factor in knowledge of disease prevention. The percentage who know all three means of preventing transmission is more than twice greater among women with secondary or more education compared to women with below primary education.
Figures on infected populations in Myanmar are unknown, or in the instances when available are usually unrepresentative of the real situation.
Forty six percent of women aged 15-49 know three main ways to prevent HIV transmission – having only one faithful uninfected sex partner, using a condom every time and abstaining from sex.
Twenty nine percent of women correctly identified three misconceptions about HIV transmission – that HIV can be transmitted through supernatural means, that it can be transmitted through mosquito bites, and that a healthy looking person cannot be infected.
Fifty one percent of women of reproductive age in Myanmar know a place to get tested for AIDS and about 1.6 percent have been tested.
The percentage of women who have sufficient knowledge of HIV transmission and the percentage who know where to get tested for HIV increases dramatically with the level of education.
(UNICEF 2003)
http://foodsecurityatlas.org/mmr/country/utilization/HIVAIDS
