11th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections San Francisco, California - February 8 - 11, 2004

Conf Retrovir Opportunistic Infect 2004 Feb 8-11;11:abstract no. 5

Anupong Chitwarakorn
Ministry of Publ Hlth, Thailand

BACKGROUND: The first case of AIDS in Thailand was diagnosed in 1984, followed in 1988 by an epidemic among injecting drug users. The following waves of epidemics occurred among sex workers in 1989, clients of sex workers in 1990, the clients' sexual partners and wives in 1991, and finally their children in 1992. New infections peaked in early 1990s and started to decrease in 1993 (from 142,819 cases in 1991 to 21,260 in 2003, a decrease of more than 80%). The estimation also indicates that by the end of 2003, a total of 1,054,684 cases have been infected with HIV, of which 450,742 already died. Thailand clearly was able to reduce the scope of HIV/AIDS epidemic. Key factors contributing to the success of the HIV/AIDS programs are: Leadership, political, and financial commitment at the highest level; effective interventions, implemented at national scale for maximum effect; multisectoral involvement, to raise the priority of the HIV/AIDS problem across the society as national; systemic epidemiological surveillance and social and behavioral research, as tools to ensure sustaining political commitment and effective intervention; and strategic partners to mobilize and maximize resources.

CONCLUSIONS: Despite the substantial progress Thailand has made in its HIV/AIDS program, it still needs to improve the prevention effort to further reduce the incidence and alleviate the burden of people living with HIV/AIDS. Some challenges are to maintain and strengthen national sexually transmitted diseases (STD) prevention and control program, focusing on 100% condom use, behavior intervention and effective diagnosis and treatment; to initiate and strengthen effective prevention program among injecting drug users; to ensure increase the access to medical care for HIV/AIDS patients including ARV drugs; to expand, mutisectoral partnership in the design, implementation, and evaluation of HIV/AIDS-related policies and program; and to promote research which will provide valuable information on the factors influencing the epidemic and its effective counter measure.

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