SOURCE: Agence France-Presse, 12/1/03
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ANGKOK, Dec 1 (AFP) - Thailand said Monday it plans to more than triple the number of HIV/AIDS patients receiving anti-retroviral (ARV) medicines next year, as health officials warned that hospitals may not be prepared to cope.

"The target for 2004 is 50,000 cases," Ministry of Health spokeswoman Petchsri Sirinirund told a press briefing to mark World AIDS day, adding that this was up from 2,500 in November last year and 15,000 cases last month.

Petchsri said the increased production of relatively cheap, locally-made anti-retroviral drugs by the Government Pharmaceutical Organisation (GPO) had allowed the government to pursue an aggressive treatment campaign.

For the estimated 600,000 Thais living with the disease, the government has already set the ambitious goal of supplying modern ARV medicines to everyone who needs them within the next two years.

But health officials warned Monday that some Thai doctors were reluctant to implement ARV programs as a new national healthcare system entitling Thais to pay just 30 baht (75 cents) for treatment had overwhelmed their workloads.

"There needs to be a critical mass of doctors to prescribe ARVs, this may be impossible, even in Thailand," said Red Cross AIDS specialist Praphan Phanuphak.

"If you don't have the real commitment from the doctors, and if you don't have commitment from the hospital directors, nothing can be done," he added.

Another obstacle he highlighted was the persistent stigma surrounding the disease in the kingdom, which was preventing some Thais from seeking blood tests and undergoing treatment.

"We need a supportive environment, either at the family level or at the working place... to enable these people to take medication regularly," he said. Thailand has led an international charge for patents on modern ARV drugs to be dropped and developing nations to be allowed to manufacture their own life-saving drugs.

It now manufactures an AIDS cocktail which costs less than a dollar a day, making it the world's cheapest drug therapy.

Country representative Bjorn Melgaard told the briefing that Thailand provided a global example of how HIV strategies could work.

"Thailand is an example of a country that can provide lessons for the world," he said.

The kingdom has long received international praise for its efforts to combat the HIV-AIDS pandemic, particularly in the 1990s when it ran a pragmatic and effective campaign to halt the spread of the virus.

Some one million Thais have been infected with HIV-AIDS over the past 20 years and more than a third of them have died, leaving the kingdom with an epidemic second only to India in the region in terms of numbers.

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