Asia: Discrimination must be eliminated with HIV infected people!

International team leaders say Asia has made progress in preventing HIV. However, discrimination attitudes towards HIV-infected people must be eliminated in order to achieve a more complete outcome.

Recently speaking before the international conference of 5,000 researchers on HIV / AIDS held in Sydney, the leading American expert, Mr. Athony Fauci and his Australian counterpart, Mr. David Cooper said HIV remains a threat to public health in Asia.

According to Fauci, local health agencies, which are slow to warn, have implemented pioneering policies and have shown previous predictions about the destruction of HIV in Asia will occur as in Africa is not right.

However, he also said that a potential risk of a pandemic still exists in Asia, an area of ​​8 million people infected with HIV that, according to USAID relief agencies, could increase to 40 million. people in 2010.

According to him, the population density in Asia, such as India and China with 1 billion people per country, is too high, making the infection rate at risk of rising and potential in which a disaster.

The model wearing a hat has a condom attached during a fashion show on HIV / AIDS held in Beijing (Photo: AFP)

Cooper, co-chair of the International AIDS Community Conference (IAS), said that social responses to HIV infected people in Asia are complex with the fact that many HIV-infected people remain isolated. social fringe and face discrimination.

He said: 'We will not have large and widespread pandemics as happened in sub-Saharan Africa, but we will have outbreaks in smaller areas.' 'They will happen in drug addicts, gay men, sex workers or those who work far away, which tend to buy sex like drivers, sailors. etc. '

' In Asia, many people tend to discriminate and stigmatize others. This practice points to vulnerable people and makes medical care unsecured '.

Last year China estimated 650,000 cases of HIV, but UN officials estimate this number is actually higher.

A new article published in the British medical journal The Lancet appreciates China's HIV / AIDS prevention programs as awareness-changing campaigns among gay men. However, the United Nations believes that they still have barriers to coping with this problem at the local level.

India, where the number of people infected with HIV is estimated to have halved this month to 2.5 million, the government will also have to pay attention to the groups of people at risk that Cooper has identified.

Anjali Gopalan, the leader of the Naz Foundation, said it is discussing about upgrading programs on social groups.

According to him, Indians who are infected with HIV are still abandoned by society. When a doctor's test results are available, the patients are evaded, HIV-positive children are prevented from going to school with other children.

In Cambodia, one of the countries with the highest number of people with HIV / AIDS, the authorities have also been concerned about discrimination, making it easy for the virus to spread.

Asia needs to eliminate discrimination against HIV infected people!(Photo: AFP)

' Discrimination makes it difficult for us to prevent AIDS,' because it is the stigma of society that causes the infected person to hide the disease, which in turn increases the risk of infection ', Ly Peng Sun, deputy director of the National Center for HIV / AIDS and Dermatology Diseases.

Vietnam has introduced anti-discrimination laws to people living with HIV. However, some employers still use excuses to fire workers infected with the virus.

Eammon Murphy, UNAIDS director, assessed this law: 'If the new law is successfully implemented, it will not only serve as a shield for basic rights for people living with HIV but also is a positive tool to counter discrimination and gossip about others',

Thailand has also adopted another measure to eliminate HIV-related taboos with innovative education campaigns such as traffic police distributing condoms to people, an initiative named Call ' Corps and Rubbers ' (Police and condoms)

The country has had to witness half a million people die of AIDS and there has been a reduction in the number of people infected with HIV since they appointed a government-level cooperative to monitor AIDS prevention efforts.

In addition, they have stepped up access to international drug manufacturers that provide more expensive and newer HIV drugs to treat older drug-resistant patients.

Minh Minh