Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2004. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Bangkok Post - November 24, 2004
Apiradee Treerutkuarkul, AP
Sombat Thanprasertsuk, director of the Aids, Tuberculosis and Sexually Transmitted Diseases Bureau, said changes in female sexual behaviour had alarmed health authorities.
"Despite the country's success in reducing Aids among sex workers, pregnant women and in the military, it's worrying that HIV has emerged among females and youngsters who are now at the heart of the epidemic," he said.
The latest report on HIV infections was a survey conducted in June of 6,700 female students aged 15-24 in 24 provinces, including Bangkok. It found 1,448 admitted they were already sexually experienced.
Among this group, 33% were unprepared for their first sexual liaison and up to 500 were forced by their partners to have sex the first time, mostly with older men. Up to 80 female students admitted to having more than 20 casual partners.
Dr Sombat said the results should be a wake-up call for health authorities to focus more on females and the younger generation to come up with methods to deal with this increasingly high-risk group.
Meanwhile, the United Nations agency fighting Aids said that in many parts of the world, but particularly Asia, more women than men are getting the disease as it has spread beyond brothels where most infections occurred 12 years ago.
Women also have higher rates of infection than men because it is easier for them to contract HIV - the virus that causes Aids - through heterosexual intercourse, the latest global HIV status report published yesterday said.
Around 2.3 million out of the 8.2 million people currently living with HIV in Asia are women - an increase of 56% since 2002. Nearly 50% of the 39.4 million people infected with HIV worldwide are women, according to the report.
The disease has claimed about 540,000 lives in Asia so far this year.
The higher number of women living with HIV/Aids proves the abstinence, being faithful and condom use (ABC) prevention approach was now inadequate for people living in developing countries, said Swarup Sakar, a UNAids official responsible for Southeast Asia and the Pacific.
Although US$6.1 billion (244 billion baht) has already been spent on tackling the problem this year, more funding is necessary for communities around the world to deal with the HIV epidemic before the situation worsens, he said.
The UNAids report also cautioned that while countries such as Cambodia, Burma and Thailand were hit early by the epidemic, others - including Indonesia, Nepal, Vietnam and China - are only beginning to see the disease spread rapidly and must begin prevention efforts.
Aids has now been detected in all parts of China, spreading mainly through intravenous drug use and prostitution. It is also frequently transmitted sexually from injecting drug users to their partners.
In Burma, a large percentage of injecting drug users have become infected with HIV, with as many as 78% testing positive in some areas of the country last year.
In India's Tamil Nadu state, about half of the sex workers have been found to be infected with HIV.
But Bangladesh, East Timor, Laos, Pakistan and the Philippines have very low infection rates and could still thwart serious outbreaks, the report said.
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