CHIANG MAI, Thailand, Dec 22 (AFP) - Shunned and mistreated by a government which would prefer to pretend they didn't exist, HIV-AIDS sufferers from military-ruled Myanmar who make their way into Thailand say they escaped a sorry plight in their home country.
Ko Lwin Moe, an 37-year-old trader who was diagnosed with the disease two years ago, says he spent a year being treated at a private clinic in the capital in Yangon before fleeing to Thailand.
"I would be dead already if I continued to live in Myanmar," he told AFP. "The Thai doctors simply treat me as a patient, which makes me very happy. But in Yangon the Myanmar medical staff treated me like I was a criminal."
After grilling him for details of his financial background to ensure he could pay for treatment, the Myanmar doctors only gave him antibiotics, and at one point told him "You're going to die some time anyway."
"I was lucky that I had enough money and the opportunity to leave for Thailand for further treatment," said Ko Lwin Moe, who earns his living importing Thai goods into Myanmar.
The United Nations agency UNAIDS estimates that up to 400,000 people among a population of 48 million are infected with HIV, while independent experts working in Yangon say the incidence could be twice as high.
However, Myanmar's junta insists that infections are a fraction of those estimated by organisations like the UN, and that a culture of abstinence before marriage and fidelity afterwards will prevent the virus from spreading.
The health ministry also rejects World Health Organisation reports condemning health services as among the worst in the world as merely attempts by "reactionary elements" to smear the country's reputation.
"The cultural and social values of Myanmar society are found to have a protective effect to a greater extent than in many population groups," junta number-three General Khin Nyunt said in his World AIDS Day speech this month.
The government's view, and a lack of accurate information about the disease and how it is spread and treated, has helped create an unhealthy attitude towards HIV-AIDS sufferers in the general community, citizens say.
Government health campaigns urge people to "respect family values" and "stay faithful to your spouse" but never mention condoms or the need for drug addicts to use clean syringes.
And those who develop the tell-tale signs of the disease -- skin lesions and wasting -- are shunned and left to sink into depression.
"In our society, people are labelling those who are HIV positive as the bad guys," said young Myanmar businessman Tun Aung who has several friends living with the disease.
"As far as I know there are only a handful of clinics for AIDS patients, which are founded by missionaries and NGOs (non-governmental agencies)," he said, adding that government hospitals do not provide specialised care.
Medicine is expensive and usually only available on the black market, he said. Patients can spend between 70 and 300 dollars a month on drugs -- an enormous amount in a country where a teacher's salary is less than 10 dollars.
Khin Sein, secretary general of the Burma Medical Group, a health organisation based on the Thai-Myanmar border, said that for the country's sake the government should focus on public health rather issues than politics when dealing with the AIDS crisis.
"We are living in a poor country where people can not effort to buy the latest medicines," said Khin Sein, who works as a volunteer at an AIDS clinic in the Thai border town of Mae Sot.
"So the only and most effective way to deal with the situation is to provide knowledge about this dreadful disease to the public and teach them how to prevent being infected."
Khin Sein said that often, HIV suffers were forced to rely on treatment and advice from pharmacies and unlicensed practitioners in small towns, and then die quickly from opportunistic infections.
Others resort to traditional medicines, advertised widely with the consent of the military government despite their dubious efficacy, or from black magic practitioners, while some leave everyday life and enter the monkhood.
"I don't understand why the government is so slow to produce the true figures of people who are infected with the virus. We need help and assistance urgently from the outside world," said Ko Lwin Moe
"As far as I know people are dying everyday with AIDS."
021222
AF021299
Copyright © AFP or Agence France-Presse, 2002 - All Rights Reserved. AFP articles contained on the AEGiS web site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without AFP's prior written permission. You may make one copy of each article for your personal, non-commercial use only; more copies would require AFP's prior written permission.. http://www.afp.com/
AEGiS is made possible through unrestricted grants from Boehringer Ingelheim, the National Library of Medicine, and donations from users like you. Always watch for outdated information. This article first appeared in 2002. This material is designed to support, not replace, the relationship that exists between you and your doctor.
©1990, 2002 - AEGiS. AEGiS presents published material, reprinted with permission and neither endorses nor opposes any material. All materials appearing on AEGiS are protected by copyright as a collective work or compilation under U.S. copyright and other laws and are the property of AEGiS, or the party credited as the provider of the content.
