InterPress News Service (IPS); Friday, 12 July 1996.
Cecile Balgos

Nyunt Nyunt of the Burmese health department was due this week, to present a paper on HIV prevention among sex workers in Burma during one of the last sessions of the 11th International Conference on AIDS which ends Friday.

The South-east Asian nation now in political crisis is estimated to have more than 500 HIV cases, making Burma (also known as Myanmar) one of the worst hit by the deadly pandemic.

As such, organisers of the weeklong conference in Vancouver decided to invite a health official from Burma to deliver a paper on how the Rangoon authorities were going about trying to contain the spread of the AIDS-causing HIV virus.

Under different circumstances, the presentation of Burma delegate would have received the undivided attention of the many health experts gathered in this Canadian city for the meeting, but Burma is today under the international spotlight for the poor human rights record of an iron-fisted military regime.

Activists from the international non-governmental group Network of Sex Work Projects (NWSP) had already signalled their intent to embarrass the Burmese delegate by distributing neon yellow flyers that urged the assembled audience to walk out of the session should Nyunt Nyunt show up.

As it happened, Nyunt Nyunt did not show, nor did the conference organisers give any explanation as to why. The organisers also opted not to respond to a NWSP demand that a public statement be made explaining why Burma had been invited to the conference in the first place.

The Burmese delegate was to be among four Asian presenters to speak at a session entitled 'Interventions By and For Sex Workers'. The Chinese, Vietnamese and Philippine delegates all made their presentations, as did health officials from Guatemala and France.

The organisers showed themselves to be "naive" and "negligent" for providing "a world stage for this military dictatorship", the Network said in a protest statement that also accused the Burmese military of executing 22 HIV-infected prostitutes in 1992.

The State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), the military regime in Burma, has faced numerous charges of human rights abuse since coming to power in 1988. In that same year, the military brutally crushed a pro-democracy uprising, killing more than 1,000 demonstrators.

The regime then blatantly ignored the results of multi-party elections in 1990 which were convincingly won by the National League for Democracy led by Aung San Suu Kyi, who was placed under house arrest for almost six years between 1989 and 1995.

Since her release in July last year, the SLORC has ignored her calls for dialogue. Moreover, the regime arrested and detained more than 250 NLD supporters and elected members of parliament in May in the lead up to a major party congress at Suu Kyi's home.

The authorities are also accused of forcing tens of thousands of ethnic minorities to work on infrastructure projects in slave- like conditions.

The human rights atrocities, coupled with the junta's failure to hold talks with Suu Kyi to defuse the political tension, may yet see Burma return to international isolation as exiled Burmese and pro-democracy activists step up the pressure on regional and international governments not to do business with the regime.

Dr. Daniel Tarantola of the Harvard School of Public Health, who participates at the Vancouver conference, worries about the implications for the AIDS epidemic with Burma's exclusion from the international community.

In an earlier interview with IPS, he described Burma as a "half- blind" spot because of the scarce reliable information available about the epidemic there.

The situation is even more critical, he says, because the government's prevention programme could not -- or would not -- reach all of the communities considered high-risk areas.

The high risk groups would include the ethnic minorities living close to the Thai and Lao border areas notoriously known as the Golden Triangle where intravenous drug use is a main cause of the spread of HIV.

Young Burmese girls and boys are also widely sought in the region in a prostitution racket that health experts warn may undermine regional efforts to combat the spread of the disease.

An article published in the magazine "Current Science" several months ago observed that while commercial sex is not unique in Asia, it may have "more of a role in the epidemics in the region" than elsewhere.

Written by academic Tim Brown of Honolulu's East-West Centre and Werasit Sittitrai of the Thai Red Cross Society, it said the tacit acceptance of commercial sex in many Asian societies, has made the practice widespread.

Growing economic disparity, as well as the prevalent gender inequality has driven many women and young girls into the commercial sex trade, the article noted.

That conclusion was also reached by experts attending a symposium that preceded the Jul 7-12 international AIDS conference.

"The HIV/AIDS epidemics in each country of Asia have been strongly influenced by gender inequality and the frequent practice of men visiting sex workers," concluded the experts in a paper titled 'The Status and Trends of the Global HIV/AIDS Pandemic' which was presented at the conference.

"Since sexual expression for females is typically more limited than for males, the small population of sex workers has large numbers of clients and consequently high rates of other STDs (sexually transmitted diseases) which enhance HIV transmission," the experts wrote in the paper.

It cited Thailand and Cambodia as among the countries in Asia where HIV incidence among sex workers and their clients were especially high, as well as India, where annually about 25 per cent of the sex workers and ten per cent of the clients contract the HIV virus.

Conservative estimates put the number of HIV/AIDS infected people in India at about 1.7 million people, but experts say the figure is probably more than three million and could be as high as five million. Thailand has more than 800,000 HIV/AIDS cases.

Health experts have predicted that Asia will overtake Africa, where two-thirds of the world's estimated 21 million HIV/AIDS victims are today found, in the number of cases unless urgent steps are taken to prevent the spread of the disease. (END/IPS/AP-HE-PR-IP-HD/CB/CPG/96)

960712
IP960708

Always watch for outdated information. This article first appeared in 1996. This material is designed to support, not replace, the relationship that exists between you and your doctor.

AEGiS presents published material, reprinted with permission and neither endorses nor opposes any material. All information contained on this website, including information relating to health conditions, products, and treatments, is for informational purposes only. It is often presented in summary or aggregate form. It is not meant to be a substitute for the advice provided by your own physician or other medical professionals. Always discuss treatment options with a doctor who specializes in treating HIV.

Copyright ©1980, 1996. AEGiS. All materials appearing on AEGiS are protected by copyright as a collective work or compilation under U.S. copyright and other laws and are the property of AEGiS, or the party credited as the provider of the content. .