Bangkok Post - June 9, 2007
Apinya Wipatayotin

Aware of the risk of HIV/Aids faced by migrant workers in the GMS countries, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) yesterday launched a project to cut the infection rate among these workers.

"Migrants and itinerant workers are most at risk of infection. They are more vulnerable to risky behaviour when separated from their spouses or family," said IOM regional migration health adviser Maria Nenette Motus yesterday.

These workers did not have basic knowledge about disease prevention and the worst was that they did not realise they were in the group with the highest risk of HIV infection, Ms Motus told a seminar on Aids prevention among migrant workers in the five GMS countries - Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Undocumented alien workers have had difficulty gaining access to medical treatment, including HIV/Aids treatment, and the governments of these countries have no policy to bring the group into their healthcare package schemes, she said. Under the IOM's newly-launched Aids prevention scheme for migrant workers, an animated video series, radio drama series, and manuals would be distributed to educate them about safe sex and improving their life skills, she said.

The materials would be available in six languages - Khmer, Burmese, Lao, Vietnamese, Thai and English.

"IOM needs support from both the government and non-government agencies in reducing risk behaviour among the migrant workers and in distributing the educational materials to them. We can't do it alone," she said.

Nuntawan Yuntadilok, from the Public Health Ministry's Bureau of Aids, TB and STIs, said most migrant workers in Thailand were not concerned about HIV infections. They earned more money here than in their own countries, so they tended to spend their money on vice, she added. Ly Peng Sun, from the National Centre for HIV/Aids Dermatology and STDs of Cambodia, expressed concern over itinerant workers in the fisheries industry.

Over 20,000 labourers working in the fisheries industry in this region were at risk from HIV infections, he said.

"These labourers have difficulty gaining access to the public health care service, so we have to encourage them to protect themselves from the fatal disease," he said.

According to UNAids, around 39.5 million people are living with HIV/Aids worldwide. An estimated 4.3 million people became infected with HIV in 2006 and nearly three million people died of Aids-related causes in 2006.

There also is growing concern about the "next wave" of the HIV epidemic in parts of Eastern Europe and Asia.

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