Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1995. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1995. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Reuters NewMedia, Inc. - 5 Oct 1995
Leo Dobbs
Figures seen on Thursday show that of 380 police blood samples, 7.89 per cent tested positive for the human-immunodeficiency virus (HIV) this year. Figures for the military and military police were 7.94 percent from 378 samples and 4.76 per cent from 105 samples, respectively.
In Koh Kong province bordering Thailand, some 30 percent of the military and 10.5 per cent of police tested positive compared to eight and six per cent, respectively, for the capital.
This compares to a rate of 3.76 percent among civilian blood donors in January.
The extent of the problem is apparent in view of government figures showing 63,000 policemen, 4,430 military police and 130,000 soldiers. However, a foreign military adviser estimaterd the number of soldiers at nearer 70,000.
Official figures as of the first quarter of 1995 show three deaths from AIDS and an estimated 30,000 HIV carriers, although officials acknowledge these are conservative.
"Among blood donors, the most prevalent among HIV-infected people are police and the military," Hor Bun Leng, the director of the HIV/AIDS Programme in Cambodia, told the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Cambodia on Wednesday night.
"The military and police are (often) very far from their families and, especially near the camps, there are brothels. They often meet with commercial sex workers and most of them are uneducated... sometimes they can't read our (HIV-AIDS awareness) messages," the doctor said.
Top military officers, including co-Defence Minister Tea Banh and chief of staff General Ke Kim Yan, were reluctant to discuss the issue but military medic Colonel Kao Try said he and the defence ministry were "strongly concerned."
"Ministry of Health statistics show that the number of police and military officers with HIV is increasing," said the director of Phnom Penh's Preah Ket Mealea Military Hospital.
Try said four soldiers admitted to the hospital this year were found to be HIV positive. Two have since died and the other two have been allowed home. He had no figure for 1994.
Indonesian sources, who requested anonymity, said around eight per cent of some 500 Cambodian army candidates for a nine-month training programme in Indonesia had been turned down after testing HIV positive.
The Indonesians eventually accepted 230 for the training, which finished earlier this year, but one source said that after a second blood check, "we sent back four soldiers because of health problems, especially HIV."
Leng of the HIV/AIDS programme said moves were under way to address the problem in the military and police, but noted a lack of human resources and funds were constraints.
"This year we have asked the UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) to help the Ministry of Defence develop a programme... so I hope that next year we will have an HIV/AIDS prevention and control programme in the ministry."
"The number of Cambodian soldiers who have died from malaria is much higher than those succumbing to battle wounds," Try said. But many observers fear that AIDS will one day become a bigger killer than malaria, mines or Khmer Rouge guerrillas.
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