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http://www.theworld.org/worldfeature/myanmar/

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Myanmar's Hidden AIDS Epidemic
Landmark Series Examines How Human Rights Abuses Fuel the Spread of HIV
Broadcast Scheduled for April 24-25 on PRI's THE WORLD

BOSTON Myanmar, the Southeast Asian nation formerly known as Burma, is
suffering an exploding AIDS epidemic fostered by its repressive
military regime.

The epidemic has gone largely unobserved by Western scientists and the
Western media because of the regime's attempts to hide it.

In a groundbreaking radio series to air April 24-25, THE WORLD's
Southeast Asia correspondent Orlando de Guzman provides a rare glimpse
inside Myanmar's health crisis.

"The story of AIDS in Myanmar is as much about human rights as  it is
about health," says de Guzman, who took several secret reporting trips
inside Myanmar over the past year to uncover the links between
government action and the spread of disease. In his series, de Guzman
shows how the military regime's promotion of opium production and the
heroin trade, its clampdowns on free speech and free press, its
economic policies that have caused mass migrations of unemployed
workers, and its lack of investment in public health have created
fertile conditions for the rampant spread of HIV.

The first part of the series is based largely on rare eyewitness
testimony from local Burmese doctors working on the front line of the 
country's AIDS crisis.

Burmese doctors who spoke to de Guzman under threat of imprisonment
revealed that while the AIDS crisis is growing worse, they are
forbidden to talk about it. A former Burmese military  doctor told de
Guzman that he was ordered to quietly dismiss soldiers who tested
HIV-positive without telling them what their diagnosis meant. Another
doctor told de Guzman that AIDS patients have become so common at his
hospital that he has been forced to discharge the sickest, and to drop
them by the roadside to die, to free up beds for other patients with
HIV.

In the second part of his series, de Guzman shows how Myanmar's
policies are helping to spread HIV to neighboring countries such as
China and Thailand. Meanwhile, international aid groups are locked in a
bitter fight over how to improve the situation in Myanmar. Some say 
money should be funnelled to the country to help those who are
suffering, while others argue that any aid to Myanmar will only prop up
the repressive regime.

PRI's THE WORLD, a daily international newsmagazine that airs on more
than 200 public radio stations nationwide, is a co-production of the
BBC World Service, Public Radio International, and WGBH Boston. The
series on AIDS in Myanmar was made possible with financial assistance 
from the Kaiser Family Foundation, the Open Society Institute, and the
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.