AIDS and Drugs Workshop Held in Kachin
July 13, 2005

Malihkrang Uma/ Myitkyina

The Kachin Baptist Convention’s Healing Ministry Department and Youth Department jointly launched a workshop to explore how to prevent the emergence of and better educate people in northern Burma about HIV/AIDS.

The two day workshop, which began on July 7, was attended by NGO workers and youth leaders from the Kachin Baptist Convention’s thirteen sub-districts.

Dr Lu Ja from the Urban Royal Mission, which implements rural development and health projects in Kachin State, said eighty-seven volunteers are conducting surveys of HIV/AIDS prevalence among people living in Myitkyina and its surrounding areas. All volunteers work courageously to gather information about HIV/AIDS in an attempt to help prevent its spread, she added.

In Burma, doctors and medical professionals are not allowed to reveal publicly about their HIV/ AIDS patients. Kachin State—sandwiched between China’s Yunnan province and India’s northeast states, both regions have highest HIV prevalence rates in their respective countries—is one of the highest HIV infection rates in Southeast Asia. The region’s AIDS inflection rate, according to The Economist magazine, is growing faster than any other part of the world. The estimated infection rate in Burma is 1.2 percent of the population.

Mahka La from AZG, an NGO which operates blood testing for HIV in Kachin State, said four out of ten people being an HIV positive during their survey, which is based only on individuals who voluntarily agree to test blood at AZG.

According to the United Nations AIDS program, over 600,000 people in Burma are infected with HIV. Only a few numbers of AIDS patients are able to access life-prolonging anti-retroviral drugs due to the lack of government funding and their high costs. Many AIDS patients are also infected with other deadly diseases.

“Today, we have not only to worry HIV, but also to worry about malaria, tuberculosis and hepatitis B,” Lu Ja said.