The first AIDS case in Myanmar was reported in 1991. By the end of last year, Myanmar's National AIDS Program estimated that more than 338,000 people were infected -- a 91 percent rise from an estimated 177,279 cases at the end of March 2002.
"The main difficulties for HIV prevention here were the funding and the coordination of partner agencies," an NAP official says.
A special fund was created for HIV programs in Myanmar, meant to address donor concerns that the military would misuse the money. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has allocated about US$54 million.
That's nowhere near enough to provide treatment for everyone with HIV, and volunteers like Phyu Phyu Tin fear the epidemic will worsen unless anti-retroviral drugs are provided.
Clinics are also needed around the country for poor people who cannot afford to travel to cities for treatment, Phyu Phyu Tin says.
"Sometimes we also have to collect our own money to cremate the patients who died here with AIDS-related illness because their family members have no money," she says.
One volunteer says that compassion to comfort patients was all that could be offered to people in their dying days.
"Without medical supplies, this is the only way in this country," he said.
RSS