Inter Press Service - July 12, 2004
Sonny Inbaraj

Now, the success of the Thai army in prevention and control of HIV/AIDS has been praised by the United Nations at the 15th International AIDS Conference. The week-long AIDS conference has drawn over 17,000 policy makers, scientists, health officials and activists.

"The success of the Royal Thai Army's HIV/AIDS prevention and control programme, treatment and care of military personnel and early surveillance of HIV within conscripts is an encouragement to other armed forces to develop work in this important field," said Ulf Kristofferson, director of the UNAIDS Office on AIDS, Security and Humanitarian Response.

"During the early stage of the epidemic in Thailand, the government recognised the potential threat HIV/AIDS could pose to national security," Kristoffersson pointed out.

"They, then acted on it by engaging their armed forces in a country-wide national programme to educate their soldiers on HIV/ AIDS," Kristoffersson told a press conference in launching the UNAIDS report entitled 'HIV/AIDS prevention and control: an experience of the Royal Thai Army in Thailand.'

In the early 1990s HIV/AIDS was in epidemic proportions in Thailand, with 1991 alone seeing 143,000 new HIV cases - on record as Thailand's worst year.

Military service is compulsory in Thailand when Thai males reach the age of 18 and according the official figures this year, 531,511 men are eligible for conscription.

Since November 1989, the Army Institute of Pathology, King Mongkut Medical Center and the Royal Thai Army Medical Department, in cooperation with 37 military hospitals, conducted HIV screening among army conscripts in order to access the prevalence of HIV infection among this group of Thai men.

"The results were first alarming," said Maj-Gen. Suebpong Sangkharomya, one of the authors of the UNAIDS report.

"In 1993, for instance we had a peak of four percent of conscripts testing positive for HIV ," Suebpong, the former Thai army's surgeon-general, told reporters.

"This was followed by a gradual decline to less than one percent in May 2003," he pointed out.

"These prevalence data, obtained primarily from conscripts, is one clear indicator of the general HIV/AIDS situation in the country," said Suebpong. "From the look of things, we have made vast progress."

But the Thai general refused to comment when asked if new recruits with HIV would be denied entry into the army.

"We've been doing testing for over ten years," he answered when questioned by reporters.

According to the UNAIDS report, condom use has also increased among Thai army personnel - from 34 percent in 1992 to more than 80 percent in 2001.

"In Bangkok, the percentage of consistent condom usage among Royal Thai Army conscripts when having sex with sex workers increased significantly - from 26 percent in 1991 to more than 80 percent in 2001," the report revealed.

Group Capt. Mandeep Singh, from the Indian Air Force, said the Thai army's success on tacking HIV/AIDS among its rank and file had a lot to do with the political will of its generals.

"Generals play a big role in advocacy and targeting the top leadership in the armed forces is important to get things moving," he told IPS.

Unlike Thailand, said Singh, there is no mandatory screening of HIV for recruits into the Indian armed forces.

"The screening process only happens when personnel are sent overseas on U.N. peacekeeping missions," he pointed out.

UNAIDS' Kristoffersson said members of the armed forces are most vulnerable to HIV/AIDS because of "their ethos of risk-taking which places them in a higher risk of HIV infections."

In many countries, HIV infection is much higher in the armed forces than it is in the general population.

Statistics are hard to come by, partly because some militaries cannot afford to do so or do not want to test serving soldiers, partly because many soldiers do not want to be tested out of fear that they may be downgraded or discharged if discovered to be HIV- positive.

In neighbouring Cambodia in 1999, according to UNAIDS, 12 to 17 percent of the armed forces were estimated to be HIV positive, compared with 3.7 percent of the general population.

Kristoffersson said there were also dangers with demobilised soldiers if they were HIV infected.

"Soldiers having completed their tour of duty in another part of the country or externally might unwittingly introduce a lethal enemy in the communities around their homes in the form of HIV," said the UNAIDS official.

"Some researchers talk of returning combatants as Trojan horses entering a low prevalence area and then spreading HIV among the civilian population," Kristoffersson pointed out.

Though policies addressing HIV/AIDS in the military are not easy to initiate or implement, Kristoffersson, however, said there was some hope.

"Soldiers are also a captive audience used to learning new skills, following orders and taking initiatives and this makes them potentially excellent agents for change and role models for other young people."

040712
IP040728

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, 2004. 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. .