Thailand to revive national free condom programme after HIV resurges:
This article was originally published in Clinica
Executive Summary
Thailand's health ministry has promised to revive the national free condom programme next year. Under the initiative, 24 million free condoms will be distributed to high-risk groups, including sex workers, migrant labourers and HIV patients. Anti-AIDS campaigners were critical of the government for having stopped this and its anti-AIDS education programme, which, they said, sent the misleading message that the problem had disappeared. Although infection levels had reduced by 90% over the past 11 years, the last two years have seen a 30% increase, mostly amongst teenagers. Thailand has around 540,000 patients with the HIV virus.