Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2001. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Bangkok Post - April 23, 2001
A three-day meeting, called the "Third International Symposium on Paediatric Aids in Thailand", is being held in Chiang Mai and will end today.
Dr Mongkol na Songkhla, the permanent secretary of the Public Health Ministry, said in Thailand alone, about 10,000 pregnant women have been infected with Aids.
Current measures could reduce the rate of perinatal HIV infection to 6% by treating women with Zidovudine during their pregnancy and giving the same drug to babies for weeks after birth.
The symposium focuses on Nevirapine, another drug applied just before delivery, which is expected to reduce the perinatal infection rate to 2%.
According to Dr Mongkol, about 984,000 Thai people, including 951,000 adults and 33,000 children, were stricken with Aids and 289,000 have died.
The number of Aids-infected Thai people rises by about 29,000 annually. This number includes about 4,200 children. At present, every year 55,000 infected people start showing symptoms and will gradually die.
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