These articles reinforce what the [him] moderator thinks about World AIDS Day: it is an idea past its prime and a colossal waste of money. It should be abandoned.
[him] moderator
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Quiz tests youth AIDS knowledge
Khin Myat and Shin Min Nwe
Myanmar Times
MYANMAR’S young people are smarter than AIDS – that was the message from the Youth Development Program for World AIDS Day, which was marked on December 1.
The Youth Development Program, under Myanmar Medical Association (MMA), invited 50 youngsters aged 15 to 24 to take part in a puzzle contest on December 9 to show their knowledge of the disease, said MMA president Dr Kyaw Myint Naing.
“It is important the young people have good knowledge about HIV/AIDS because they are our future leaders,” he said.
He added that the government and its partner organisations have been trying to educate the young people to avoid risky behaviour that could lead to their contracting HIV/AIDS.
Dr Ne Win, secretary of the General Practitioners Society of MMA, said the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) had agreed to provide US$20 million to the Youth Development Program for a 2008-2010 project to implement HIV/AIDS prevention activities.
The program would be carried out in collaboration with organisations such as MMA, Myanmar Red Cross Society, Association François-Xavier Bagnoud (AFXB) and Central Health Bureau (Education).
Dr Ne Win added that the program also released a CD called Reaching Out to the Future and consisting of songs written and performed by the 10 winners of song contests in 2007.
“We are going to distribute the CD free of charge as far as we can reach,” he said.
Another contest, “Golden Ideas”, would be held to help disseminate HIV/AIDS awareness information effectively among young people.
The Ratana Metta Organisation held a ceremony for World AIDS Day on December 5 at the Shwe Kyin Dhammayone near Maha Wizaya Pagoda in Bahan township.
U Myint Swe, the president of the organisation, said that it was the 20th time it had marked World AIDS Day, adding that over 1000 patients donated alms to monks on the day.
He said the organization planned to expand its provision of anti-retroviral treatment from 10 to 200 out of 1000 patients next year.
According to UNICEF, as of December 1, 2008, the number of people in Myanmar living with HIVAids was 240,000, of whom almost two-thirds are aged under 34.
http://www.mmtimes.com/no449/n005.htm
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Two-thirds of Myanmar HIV cases involve youths: UNICEF
YANGON (AFP) – Youths in Myanmar are particularly at risk from HIV, with almost two thirds of the near quarter million people living with the virus in that country aged under 24, the UN Children's Fund said Monday.
About 100,000 women are also living with HIV in Myanmar and many newborns are at risk of being infected, Ramesh Shrestha, the UNICEF representative in Myanmar, said in a statement for World AIDS Day.
"Young people have a higher propensity for risk-taking behaviour which exposes them to avoidable risks including exposure to HIV," Shrestha said.
"It is estimated that there are approximately 240,000 people living with HIV in Myanmar, of which almost two thirds are young people under 24 years of age," the statement said.
International humanitarian organization Medecins Sans Frontieres has said that about 76,000 of those living with HIV in Myanmar are in urgent need of antiretroviral treatment (ART).
A senior Myanmar health ministry official said more funding was needed to prevent HIV spreading inside the country.
"More funds are needed not only ART for AIDS patients but also for prevention projects," Kyaw Nyunt Sein told AFP.
About 11,000 AIDS patients around the country are getting ART from the government and international NGOs, he said.
Only 170 administrative regions out of 325 around the country can implement 100 percent condom promotion to prevent the HIV virus spreading because of funding shortages.
"We cannot give complete prevention. The disease mostly occurs through sexual contact, that's why we want to do 100 percent condom promotion for youths," he said.
Myanmar has been ruled by the military since 1962 and the impoverished nation's healthcare system is in poor condition.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081201/hl_afp/myanmarhealthaids_081201171936
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Burmese Migrants Mark World AIDS Day
LAWI WENG
Monday, December 1, 2008
More than 1,000 Burmese migrants marked World AIDS Day on Monday in Mae Sot on the Thai-Burmese border by conducting a one-hour walk from Cynthia Maung’s Mae Tao Clinic to Mae Sot market to raise awareness about HIV/ AIDS within the Burmese migrant community in Mae Sot. They also distributed leaflets telling migrants how to protect themselves against the disease.
Saw Than Lwin, a supervisor at the Mae Tao clinic’s AIDS department, said that HIV/ AIDS increases every year among Burmese migrants in the region.
“We have about 1,000 HIV/ AIDS patients,” he said. “Many are migrants. We can provide only 3 percent of the necessary antiretroviral treatment (ART).”
According to a joint Asean-UN report released on Thursday, 1.5 million migrants across Southeast Asia, who are adults and of working age, are infected with HIV.
A Thai nongovernment organization (NGO), the Pattanarak Foundation, which supports HIV/AIDS patients in the Three Pagodas Pass area at the Thai-Burmese border, helped organize an event in Three Pagodas Pass to commemorate World AIDS Day on Monday, where an estimated 800 Burmese migrants participated.
The group said the number of HIV patients has doubled this year.
Meanwhile, in Burma, the state-run New Light of Myanmar newspaper reported World AIDS Day with a commentary declaring, “Stop AIDS. Keep the Promise. Scaling [sic] up prevention, treatment and care.”
The Burmese military authorities on Monday held a meeting in Naypyidaw to discuss the current impact of AIDS in the country, according to an NGO source in Rangoon.
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) published a report last week titled “A Preventable Fate” in which it said that some 25,000 people in Burma had died from AIDS-related diseases last year.
The report warned that about 30,000 Burmese with HIV/ AIDS will die in the next 12 months if those people can’t find medical support.
“Only one in four HIV/ AIDS patients are getting ART—that is 15,000 people,” said Frank Smithuis, the head of the MSF mission in Rangoon.
“MSF currently provides treatment to 11,000 of the 76,000 people who need immediate treatment,” he said.
The Burmese regime and other NGOs supply 4,000 people with ART, according to Smithuis.
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=14723
