Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2004. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Bangkok Post - July 14, 2004
Apiradee Treerutkuarkul
Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra had planned to announce his plan at the 15th International Aids Conference with a pledge to give the locally made anti-Aids drug - GPOVIR - to patients in Burma, Cambodia and Laos.
However, the Public Health Ministry's budget is inadequate to put the plan into action.
The Government Pharmaceutical Organisation has the capacity to produce GPOVIR in excess of domestic needs.
But Public Health Minister Sudarat Keyuraphan said yesterday the government was not in a position to implement the project until next year as well-trained staff were also required for the job. It could happen only after a new state-owned factory to produce generic drugs was built, she said.
Petchsri Sirinirund, the Disease Control Department's senior expert in preventive medicine, said as far as she knew the Global Fund had declined to join in the Thai effort. The government would ask the fund to reconsider its decision.
More details needed to be included before the plan was re-proposed to the Global Fund because it offered so many long-term benefits to people in neighbouring countries, she said.
State organs were now working with non-government organisations, such as the Population and Community Development Association and Medicins Sans Frontiers, to provide ARV drugs to infected hilltribe people and HIV-positive patients along the border.
The two-year programme is being run with funding support from the European Union in hospitals in Chiang Saen and Mae Sai district, Chiang Rai. It also draws patients from Burma and Laos.
Don De Gagne, who oversees the project, said at present 13 patients from Burma and Laos were receiving anti-retroviral treatment there.
But it was still necessary to train more medical staff and volunteers and turn hospitals into a "one-stop service" to give people not only care and treatment but also counselling so they could better understand the programme, he said.
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