Unicef on Wednesday released its most damning report to date on the state of the world s children. The annual study is strong stuff and does not sit well on an empty stomach or ease the pangs of a guilty conscience, which Unicef seems to believe most of us should be suffering from with varying degrees of culpability. I
Leading HIV/Aids advocate Mechai Viravaidya has urged the media to remain watchful against the spread of HIV/Aids as there are signs of increasing infections among teenagers. Mr Mechai was speaking at a regional meeting on South Asian media leaders initiatives on HIV/Aids, held in Bangkok last week by the
Aids patients were unlikely to gain access to cheaper drugs after the free trade agreement between Thailand and the United States is signed, a human rights discussion was told yesterday. Supatra Nakaphew, director of the Aids-related Rights Protection Centre, yesterday told the discussion, which is part of the Dec 9-16
It has been nine years since that day when Kamol Uppakarn locked himself up in a room, alone in the darkness. He sat in a corner, his eyes fixed on a piece of cloth hanging from the ceiling. The doctor s words echoed inside his head: I m sorry. You ve tested positive for HIV. At first, he was speechless. Then came the
To mark World s Aids Day - today - HBO will present the film Angels in America on UBC 12 in two parts, today and tomorrow, from 9 to 10:55pm. Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning play Angels in America by Tony Kushner, and directed by Mike Nichols, the six-hour film stars Academy Award-winners Al Pacino, Meryl Streep an
-- After a promising start, the fight against HIV/Aids seems to be on the slide, but renewed efforts and an all-inclusive policy could yield big dividends The HIV/Aids epidemic continues to wreak havoc and poses a pervasive challenge for the world community. The latest Aids epidemic update from United Nations (UN) agen
Let s have Oop, and you won t have HIV/Aids, you won t get pregnant, and there will be no need to go for an abortion, said the Youth Network on Aids yesterday. That s the key message the group sent out at the launch of a campaign to promote the use of Oop brand condoms, on the last day of the People s Aids Forum.
Civic networks yesterday closed a public forum on Aids with a strong demand to the government and society - give people living with HIV/Aids equal treatment. The three-day event, spearheaded by the Thai NGO Coalition on Aids, was aimed at disseminating information about the current Aids situation in
A blacklisted one-legged German at the centre of an HIV scare involving hundreds of Thai women was arrested for entering the country for the third time and will be expelled again, police said yesterday. Hans-Otto Schiemann, 54, was detained on Thursday night in the northeastern province of Chaiyaphum and will be handed
Aging people affected by HIV/Aids are bemoaning the government s inadequate support and unclear policy which leave them to fend for themselves while having to care for HIV-positive children. A group of elderly people mostly from Chiang Mai province took to the stage at the People s Aids Forum yesterday at Sanam Luang.
Yes or no? Youth affairs activists are divided whether condom use should be promoted among teenagers. The contentious issue came up during a hot debate at the People s Aids Forum at Sanam Luang yesterday. Kittiphan Kanjina, of Youth Net, endorsed the condom use campaign. He said teenagers today are unknowingly at risk
Society has learnt valuable lessons since HIV/Aids first came to light 20 years ago through the strengthening of public participation in the fight against the disease, said renowned Aids campaigner Senator Jon Ungphakorn yesterday. People have learnt they can share their lives with people infected with the Aids virus,
The People s Aids Forum, organised by the Thai NGO Coalition on Aids and 18 other advocacy groups, kicks off today to address the successes and failures of the two-decade battle with the disease. Under the theme For Life, Dignity and People s Participation , the three-day forum at Sanam Luang is aimed at providing info
Despite an overall decline in the number of HIV infections, Thailand is still a far cry from being a success story in the fight against HIV/Aids, civic groups said. The groups, which are working under the Thai NGO Coalition on Aids (TNCA) and colleagues from 18 Aids NGO networks said new problems continue to emerge, in
MTV is once again staging its free Staying Alive 2005 concert, which aims to raise awareness about HIV and Aids on Saturday November 26 at the main auditorium, Thammasat University, Tha Phra Chan campus. Thai artists to join the mission include singers and bands such as BodySlam, Endorphine, 4 Gotten, Crescendo, Ben Ch
Sisters, the first counselling centre for transgenders in Thailand , was launched in Pattaya yesterday. Located on Soi Yensabai in South Pattaya, the non-profit centre is a branch of the Washington-based Population Services International (PSI). Its objective is to provide information and activities that benefit member
Aids activists yesterday urged the government to negotiate for a compulsory licence on Effavirenz to help patients who are resistant to GPO-VIR, which is produced locally. Nimitre Thienudom, director of the Aids Access Foundation, considers the Aids situation in the country to be at a crisis point due to an insufficien
Children in East Asia and the Pacific are increasingly bearing the brunt of the HIV/Aids pandemic, with an estimated 120,700 children living with the disease, the regional director of Unicef said yesterday. The face of HIV/Aids in East Asia and the Pacific is becoming younger, Anupama Rao Singh said. In
In a bid to reduce embarassment and strengthen the fight against the disease, the National Youth Network on HIV/Aids will distribute Oop! brand condoms, which it recently designed and developed, among youths. Sarinya Singthongwan of the Condoms Project Society said the Oop! condom initiative was partly inspired by a ca
Thailand is planning to introduce a new international standard to ensure medicinal products from the Government Pharmaceutical Organisation (GPO) and private manufacturers will be in line with international drug market requirements. Prapol Ungtrakul, a senior official of the Food and Drug Administration, said the Pha
The Education Ministry blames a decadent society for the problem of premature sex among teenagers and urges parents, teachers and the government to instil moral values into youngsters. Children are what society is, said Charuayporn Thoranin, deputy education permanent secretary. At a seminar on sex education yesterday,
The Public Health Ministry says there has been an increase in the availability of counterfeit medicines and substandard foods, as well as a rise in communicable diseases, including HIV infections, in the southern border provinces. Concerns were raised after Suwaj Thienthong, the ministry s inspector-general, surveyed t
More than 100 drug users protested at city hall yesterday against an ongoing human trial in Bangkok of Tenofovir , an Aids prevention drug. They raised questions about its safety and the willingness of the volunteers and demanded a halt to the trial.
The government should pay more attention to preventing the spread of HIV/Aids among teenagers, said Prof Daniel Tarantola, an expert on the disease at the World Health Organisation (WHO). He said there were signs that the HIV epidemic was threatening to rebound, especially among teenagers, drug users and housewives. An
Mbabane - Swaziland s absolute monarch King Mswati III has ordered an end to a five-year no-sex rite for teenage girls, who had to pledge chastity and wear woollen do not touch me tassles in a bid to halt the spread of Aids. Swaziland s maidens will forsake their tassles and the umchwasho chastity pledge on Monday, ahe
Safety cannot be fully guaranteed in a plan to help HIV-infected husbands to have a baby through intra-uterine insemination of their wives, the former chief of the Medical Council Pramuan Virutamasen said yesterday. Dr Pramuan said unexpected mistakes could occur through human or lab errors, resulting in the mother bei
In the long battle against HIV/Aids, few politicians, international health bureaucrats or government aid agencies are bold enough to admit failure. While the World Health Organisation (WHO), believes the key is larger amounts of cash for drugs, former US president Bill Clinton warns of a looming catastrophe unless poli
Today is the first time in years that Noi, who is terminally ill with HIV/Aids, has been away from her children on Mother s Day. Due to her illness Noi has had to leave her nine-year-old daughter, Kaew, and her five-year-old son, who is HIV-positive, in the care of social workers at a state-run emergency home for child
Yutthachai Preeyamas feels comfortable with his sexual orientation, and is accepted by his family and friends as one of those Men Who Have Sex with Men, or MSM. But when the 27-year-old went to see a doctor with a rectal problem, he was surprised by the doctor s reaction. Instead of treating me professionally, the phys
The world s largest human trial project for a potential vaccine against HIV/Aids is running behind schedule due to a failure in raising awareness among health staff and potential volunteers, a study has shown. The joint survey by the College of Population Studies at Chulalongkorn University and the Bureau of Aids, Tube
Thailand is not a position to produce a second line of anti-retroviral drugs for patients who have developed a resistance to the locally-made GPO-VIR, dashing hopes of thousands of HIV/Aids sufferers who are seeking a more effective and cheaper medication. Chief of the Disease Control Department Thawat Sundarachan sa
Students, parents and lecturers are at odds over whether condom vending machines should be installed at school and university campuses in a bid to reduce the risk of HIV among young people. While more than 200 participants at a national conference on Aids - mostly young students and parents - agreed with the idea, beli
Aids is spreading among young women in the southern provinces because condom use contravenes religious beliefs and there is little sex education, which puts young Muslims at high-risk of infection, an HIV/Aids prevention worker in the South said. Wannakanok Pohedaedao, representing a network of youths against HIV/Aids,
The global toll of HIV/Aids is three million lives a year, 10 times that of the Asian tsunami disaster. In many parts of the world, an entire generation of workers, educators and parents has been lost, with devastating impact on entire societies. Yet most of these three million lives annually lost could be saved by doi
Thai human right groups and HIV/Aids-related organisations are doing their best to get the government not to agree to free trade agreement (FTA) proposals with the US that will end up making HIV/Aids patients buy expensive patented drugs. The organisations, led by FTA Watch, have sent a letter to Paul Hunt, the Geneva-
-- Burma is facing one of the world s worst Aids epidemics. In parts of the country, HIV/Aids is raging out of control The scourge of Aids and HIV in Burma is being fuelled by a mixture of ignorance, denial and lack of government action - a dangerous cocktail that could affect a quarter of the population within the nex
One of Asia s most popular international gay and lesbian festivals will be moved from Singapore to Phuket this year after the Singapore police turned down an application for a permit to stage the party, organisers said yesterday. A gay website which had organised the festival in Singapore since 2001, , said
Aids and human rights activists have opposed a government plan to hold human trials of Tenofovir , an Aids prevention drug, in Bangkok next month. They have raised questions about the trial s safety and transparency, and possible human rights violations
An anti-Aids oral drug trial is to be launched at a hospital run by the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration next month. Deputy city clerk Pitinan Natrujirote said the trial is to determine tenofovir s efficacy in preventing the spread of HIV. The trial has been approved by the Public Health Ministry, he said. About 1,6
The world s largest human trial project on a potential vaccine for HIV/Aids in Thailand needs more volunteers. Supachai Rerks-ngarm, project director and principal investigator at the Disease Control Department, said organisers behind the Prime-Boost HIV Vaccine Phase III Trial were confident they would meet the first
So you thought your teenage years were tough and your children have it much, much better? Try putting on your teenage children s shoes for a bit and see how it feels to be labelled a decadent obsessed with sex and violence. In our pimple-plagued days, teenagers were said to be rebellious, anti-establishment spirits. Co
A rare strain of Aids found in New York City could possibly spread to Thailand via Thais visiting the city and engaging in high-risk sexual behaviour and drug abuse, an Aids expert said yesterday. Supachai Rerks-ngarm, the principal investigator for the Phase III Prime Boost HIV vaccine trial, said epidemiological inve
The government will delay providing locally made anti-Aids drugs under the 30-baht health-care scheme, saying it was not ready for such a long-term commitment. After discussing the issue with the national committee on Aids prevention and solution, Disease Control Department director-general Thawat Sundarachan said that
At one point in Riyo Naoi s affecting documentary Yesterday Today Tomorrow, an HIV-positive father in northern Thailand is trying to console his bed-bound, HIV-positive 11-year-old son and explain to the boy why he shouldn t feel so sorry that he s going to die. You ve seen enough of the world, he says. You ve been t
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