Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2004. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Bangkok Post - May 31, 2004
Apiradee Treerutkuarkul
While supporting the generosity of the plan, Sureerat Treemanka, a representative of Network for Thai NGOs on Health, said local Aids patients should be the priority.
Thailand has 312,419 Aids patients and yet less than 50,000 have received GPOVIR, which is produced by the Government Pharmaceutical Organisation, she said.
Helping neighbouring countries should be a long-term project to ensure that poor patients in those countries would regularly receive anti-retroviral treatment.
"If the government really intends to help HIV-positive patients in neighbouring countries, it should also come up with a long-term cooperation plan with those governments to support not only a cocktail of anti-Aids drugs, but also medical know-how," she said. "That will make them stand on their own feet to treat their patients without causing us much burden."
The comments came in response to a plan announced by Mrs Sudarat last week that Thailand might provide the anti-HIV/Aids cocktail to 30,000 patients in Burma, Cambodia and Laos, due to a projected oversupply for domestic use.
Mrs Sudarat intended to make the proposal to other government and non-governmental leaders during the International Aids Conference to be held in Bangkok on July 11-16.
Kamol Uppakaew, chairman of the Thai Network of People Living with HIV/Aids, said the government's priority should be on other local groups of Aids patients not eligible for GPOVIR, such as drug-addicts, prisoners and hilltribe villagers who had no Thai nationality.
The government should also ensure health security for all local patients by adding GPOVIR into the 30-baht health scheme so that the pills could become more easily accessible, he said.
The government should protect Aids patients in the country first "before rushing to give other countries support, so it will not affect all of us in the long run," he said.
Mrs Sudarat yesterday defended the plan as a show of Thailand's commitment to help neighbouring countries, as stipulated in agreements on health cooperation. The Public Health Ministry had already put border people and hilltribe villagers without Thai nationality on the list of its extended GPOVIR-distribution plan in a bid to give them more access to cheap pills, she added.
Thongchai Thawichachart, the GPO director, expressed optimism about the plan because the agency's drug production capacity would increase, thanks to a new factory in Nakhon Nayok expected to open within months.
Mrs Sudarat's plan comes at a time when Thailand must take on more financial responsibility for producing the drugs that combat HIV/Aids.
This year the Global Fund on Aids, Malaria and Tuberculosis will end its 359-million-baht support to cover expenses for HIV/Aids patients in Thailand, and the budget on anti-Aids drug distribution is likely to decrease to 800 million baht for the next fiscal year from about 904 million baht at present.
Ms Sureerat of the Network for Thai NGOs on Health believed the expected decreasing budget would affect the country's battle against the disease unless the government could find other international financial sources to support the project.
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