Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2003. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2003. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Reuters NewMedia - Tuesday October 21, 2003
Chawadee Nualkhair
In Bangkok with her husband President Bush for an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum summit, Laura Bush watched children dance to Thai and Western tunes and handed out red, white and blue kaleidoscopes to each dancer.
"I want to reiterate what the dances were about -- unity, hope and future," she said at the Queen Sirikit National Institute of Child Health, the first hospital in the world to work on preventing babies contracting HIV from infected mothers.
The United States is helping with the work.
"I am proud of the collaboration between the CDC and the Thai Ministry of Public Health to prevent mother-to-child transmission of AIDS," she said, referring to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.
The children, most wearing traditional Thai costumes and flowers in their hair, performed against a backdrop of images featuring Thailand's Temple of the Dawn and the Statue of Liberty.
The day's youngest performer was three-year-old Tuti, who performed a dance called "Hope" in a yellow Indonesian costume, her beaded hat slipping over her ears.
"Watching her perform for the First Lady, I was really very touched," said Tuti's aunt, 33-year-old Pruksacha Churueang.
"Before she came to dance here, she would ask me 'Is Laura Bush scary?'
She's afraid of people with big noses. But I told her she was a nice lady and would give presents."
BIGGER EFFORT
The United Nations says Asia could become the next AIDS epicenter after southern Africa, with nearly one million people in the Asia-Pacific region infected with HIV in 2002, taking the number living with the virus in the region to 7.2 million.
About one million people are HIV-positive in Thailand.
Asia-Pacific leaders, alarmed by the rapid spread of the virus in the world's most populous region, emphasized the importance of cooperation in tackling the disease.
"I think we need to make a much bigger effort as a region to address HIV-AIDS than we have made up until now," Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer told reporters. It could "do dreadful damage," he said.
About 12,000 HIV-infected women give birth each year in Thailand but officials say a program to prevent mother-to-child transmission has made great strides.
The program involves giving free anti-retroviral drugs to HIV-positive pregnant women and to children.
Without intervention, up to 30 percent of all babies born to HIV-positive mothers would contract the disease, the U.S. embassy said. The program has whittled that figure down to less than 10 percent.
Later in the day, after landing in Singapore with her husband, the First Lady received an honor granted to Princess Diana, Margaret Thatcher and Ricky Martin when the city-state named an orchid after her.
Singapore, a major exporter of orchids, presented her with the "Mokara Laura Bush" -- a lemon yellow orchid dotted with pale orange-brown spots -- at a ceremony at the Botanic Gardens.
"Thank you very much. I can't imagine anything nicer than having an orchid named after yourself," she told a Singapore delegation.
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