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 26, 2004
Saritdet Marukatat & Sirikul Bunnag
Hakan Bjorkman, deputy chief of the UNDP in Thailand, said the government needs to do more to instil knowledge about the disease and measures to prevent infection.
The call comes after a survey revealed that almost 70% of Thais wanted Aids education to begin as early as primary level.
The survey, by Bangkok University, sought the views of 7,500 Thais nationwide. "Aids education ought to be a consistent part of the school curriculum from primary through secondary level, when student risk behaviour tends to increase," the survey report concluded.
Suchart Wongsuwan, director of the Bureau of Academic Affairs and Educational Standards, said pupils learned about the epidemic as early as Prathom 1 while studying the nature of dangerous communicable diseases.
They started with basic information and teachers taught them more in later stages, including how Aids developed, prevention measures, risk groups and campaigns against the virus, he said.
The information passed on in class came from the Public Health Ministry and other agencies fighting Aids.
In the survey, 60% of people said the government was not doing enough to stop Aids, consistent with complaints by several Aids campaigners in recent weeks.
They felt the government was being complacent after a good start initially, when new infections were reduced from 143,000 in 1991 to about 20,000 last year.
In the survey, nearly 80% of people aged 15-25 said they did not believe they were at risk of infection, in line with a previous UNDP study this year showing only one-fifth of young people used condoms consistently.
"That's worrying," Mr Bjorkman said.
Teenagers are deemed a high-risk group because of their reluctance to use protection during sex.
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