Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2001. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Bangkok Post - July 12, 2001
Yuwadee Tunyasiri
This would include backing for research on V-1 Immunitor pills, an alleged Aids panacea promoted by the Salang Bunnag Foundation.
Conservative officials who did not support innovative research would be removed.
Some officials were adhering too closely to international rules that were preventing Thai researchers from experimenting with Aids vaccines, he told the Eighth National Aids Conference in Muang Thong Thani yesterday.
"In fact, we should give Thai people opportunities to develop a vaccine.
"I have tried to deal with this and I believe that the Health Ministry will now support local research that is based on scientific and humanitarian approaches," Mr Thaksin said.
Many health and Food and Drug Administration officials were now developing more favourable attitudes to domestic attempts to discover a vaccine.
"Some officials have not accepted the change but we must give them time. But if they are unable to adjust, we must replace them with those who can," Mr Thaksin said.
A fund for copyrighting Thai herbal products would be set up, he said. Local people would be able to borrow from it at favourable terms to pay the registration fees.
- More help is needed for the 400,000 Thai children who have lost parents to Aids, activists say.
Mayuree Yoktree, director of Ban Wiang Ping orphanage, told the conference that social problems were increasing among children whose parents had died.
"Children must live with relatives. Some of them are raped. They are likely to enter prostitution or end up homeless. Society will reject them," she said.
About 430,000 children are affected by Aids, including those infected with the virus, says Unaids, the United Nations Aids body. Some 60,000 children who received the virus from their mothers had died. Another 5,000-8,000 children are infected with the disease each year.
Waraluck Chaimuangchuen, an Aids activist from the upper North, said only "physical" help like food and scholarships was available.
Children's welfare funds picked up most of the burden, even though communities and public officials were urged to step in. Ms Waraluck said more mental health care was needed, or the children would end up as aggressive adults who rejected society.
Jitraporn Udomkantrong, an activist from the Panyapiwat group, an NGO, urged the public to help children recover from their loss and overcome their loneliness.
The elderly was another group affected by Aids. Grandparents stepped in to care for children whose parents had died. Elderly people earned little money and sometimes were in frail health. They worried about the future of their grandchildren after theirdeath.
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