Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2001. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Bangkok Post - January 27, 2001
But sceptics are also entitled to think that the generals simply want to remove another source of criticism ahead of a European Union delegation beginning a three-day visit to the country on Monday.
"HIV, Aids. It's a national cause. If we ignore it, it will be the scourge that will destroy entire nations," Lt-Gen Khin Nyunt said in a recent interview with the Myanmar Times, a partly private-owned weekly newspaper.
In November, Mya Oo, the deputy health minister, had spoken of a "political background" to the discussion on Aids, and blamed "reactionary elements" for "insulting" Burma.
Thirteen months earlier, in October 1999, Lt-Gen Khin Nyunt himself claimed the Aids scare was being used by the junta's political enemies to "attack Myanmar".
The United Nations Programme on HIV-Aids (UNAids) estimates that 530,000 of Burma's 48 million people are HIV-positive. A Medecins Sans Frontieres specialist, who has spent six years working on HIV-Aids prevention in Burma, believes the real number of sufferers could be anywhere between 200,000 and 1,000,000.
Before Lt-Gen Khin Nyunt's public admission, Burmese officials had quietly told UNaids that 47%of the prostitutes in Rangoon and Mandalay were found infected when tested last year. Censored government figures said another 57% of the heroin addicts tested positive.
In the interview, Lt-Gen Khin Nyunt pleaded lack of funds, saying Burma could not afford the US$2 per person it would cost to conduct tests. But this rang hollow in view of the junta's military spending in 1999 of US$2.1 billion, or 6.8% of the gross domestic product, according to Thai army figures. By comparison, Thailand's military bills amounted to only 1.5 % of GDP.
In addition, Burmese authorities have been indifferent to a Thai proposal, put forward last year, for a package approach to solving the spread of Aids along the Thai-Burmese border by curbing prostitution and drug addiction.
To convince doubters that there has been a real reversal on the question of Aids and a genuine concern with the health threat towards the Burmese people, the junta has to follow through by putting action into words, and by sustaining the effort.
Lt-Gen Khin Nyunt said the health ministry was raising HIV awareness among villagers, which indeed is a must. But what is being done to prevent the spread of Aids through prostitution and heroin addiction in a culture where needle-sharing is the custom?If the generals want help to fight Aids, and they clearly need it, they have to show more concern for public health in general by raising its priority ranking and allocating more budget to the sector.
The timing of Lt-Gen Khin Nyunt's admission raises the momentum started by the reported "breakthrough" on the political front, with talks he is said to have started in October with Aung San Suu Kyi of the National League for Democracy.
Following encouraging reactions to that event from the region, including from Thailand and Singapore, the junta followed up by allowing food parcels to detained NLD members, and most recently by releasing 19 NLD members after holding them for four months.
If nation-building matters, the admission on Aids should be more than part of the thaw, with the generals ensuring and sustaining real care for sufferers and protecting more from succumbing to the scourge.
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