AIDS and global challenges

8th International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific:

By Indeewara Thilakarathne

As Sri Lanka hosts the eighth international Congress on AIDS in Asia and Pacific (ICAAP) under the motto 'Waves of Change' - 'Waves of Hope', it is pertinent to look at the myriad of challenges the killer disease poses against the backdrop of increasing vulnerability of the population, especially those who are in the high risk category, teenagers, commercial sex-workers and migrant workers.

The Congress will be held in Sri Lanka from August 19 to 23.

Among other things the congress will focus on the importance of regional cooperation in combating the disease, controlling the spread of the HIV /AIDS and to seek seek collective regional commitment to address challenges posed by HIV and AIDS.

The Congress provides an important meeting point between political leaders, affected communities and researchers from the Asia-Pacific region. Over the years it has made important recommendations to increase the strength, capacity and financial resources of individuals and institutions and to renew global commitment against AIDS.

Some of the objectives of the ICAAP will be to achieve meaningful exchanges of expertise, experiences, advances, lessons learnt, challenges faced and successes achieved in HIV/AIDS programmes, to form meaningful and sustainable partnerships between stakeholders at all levels, to showcase achievements and successes and share best practices, to empower and strengthen political, community and business leadership, adopting a consultative, collaborative and participatory approach, to ensure that communities that are infected, affected and vulnerable to HIV/AIDS and their families are free from stigmatization, marginalization and discrimination by addressing political, social, economic and cultural barriers and working towards societies in which they can enjoy the full range of human rights and protections as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the associated protocols and to promote equal access to prevention, support, treatment and care for all people.

Global situation

According to the latest statistics on HIV/AIDS issued by the UNAIDS and WHO, currently 39.5 million people worldwide are living with HIV by 2006 and 37.2 million among them are adults while women and children under 15 years are 17.7 million and 2.3 million respectively.

An estimated number of people affected by AIDS to in the region of 4.3 million and among them 3.8 million are adults and 530, 000 are children under 15 years. By the year 2006, 2.9 million people died of AIDS. Among them 2.6 million are adults and 380,000 are children under 15 years.

Despite positive steps that have been taken to educate and combat HIV/ADIS throughout the globe, people living with HIV continues to grow against the backdrop of increasing deaths caused by HIV/AIDS.

Compared to 2004, an addition of 4.3 million adults and children were infected with HIV and AIDS which is about 400,000 more than in 2004. Among adults there was a 40 per cent increase of infections in 2006.

Among the regions Sub-Saharan Africa is worst affected by HIV/AIDS and two third (63%) of all adults and children live with HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa. Although number of people living with HIV/AIDS increased in all regions during the past two years, a dramatic increase occurred in East Asia, Eastern Europe and Central Asia where number of people living with HIV in 2006 over one fifth (21%) higher than in 2004.

In South and South East Asia, number of new HIV infections increased by 15 % between 2004 and 2006. In the Middle East and North Africa the figure rose by 12%.

Sri Lankan situation

Sri Lanka is considered as a low-level epidemic country with the HIV prevalence rate among high risk groups remaining below 5 per cent. In 2005, estimated people living with HIV (15-45) were 5000 out of which 500 died. It has been observed that Sri Lanka is in the initial stage of carrying out surveillances to arrest risk behaviour among vulnerable sections of the population.

In most of the countries, individuals in the vulnerable groups are susceptible to infection through risk behaviour such as multiple-sex partners and injecting drugs. Educating the public on AIDS and contraceptive methods is as important as treatment and caring of people living with HIV and stamp out social stigma associated with HIV/AIDS.

In Sri Lanka the vulnerable group that are at a higher risk of infection include migrant workers, commercial sex workers in major cities and male sex workers involved in tourism and women employees working at factories in the free trade zones.

According to statistics, there is an estimated 30,000 child sex workers or so called beach boys engaged in tourism and are at a higher risk of infection than the other vulnerable groups. The figure would have been much higher than the expected levels given the difficulties in gathering information regarding male sex workers in the tourist sector.

Sex education

In traditional Sri Lankan homes sex is taboo and discussed, perhaps, behind closed doors. This attitude towards sex has had a negative impact on sex education in Sri Lanka.

Although scanty information on reproduction and sexually transmitted disease has been incorporated into the school syllabi, teachers, especially women teachers are bit reluctant to teach those lessons.

The high risk groups including those who are the in 15-24 age group, are, more or less, relied on peer groups and secondary sources of information, for information on sex and Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STD).

Therefore, it is imperative that sex education in a comprehensive manner should be re-introduced to the school syllabi and in all higher education institutions. On the other hand, the authorities in the health sector should encourage the use of contraceptive methods especially among young adults who are, now, delaying marriage due to diverse reasons.

AIDS and its impact

Although Sri Lanka currently maintains zero prevalence, if the negative trends continues for the next few year with demographic changes, the economy will further crippled as HIV/AIDS will affect the most productive segments of the economy; people in the age group of 15-45. It will put further strain on economy in terms of increasing expenditure on healthcare.

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