Health Unlimited : Treating HIV/AIDS on the Burma/China border

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Main Content: Treating HIV/AIDS on the Burma/China border

As well as running projects to educate people about how to prevent the spread of HIV, Health Poverty Action is distributing lifesaving anti-retroviral drugs to people living with HIV/AIDS in the Kachin border region of Burma.

HIV/AIDS screening and treatment, combined with treatment for other life-threatening illnesses is now giving hope to people in an area where almost no other HIV/AIDS treatment services exist.

An initial study in 2007 found an HIV rate of 4.4% in the general population, and 57% amongst injecting drug users. Many of these people also have Hepatitis C, TB and other diseases which can complicate anti-retroviral treatment plans.

This project aims to provide treatment and care for injecting drug users, sex workers, military workers and other poor villagers.

The team works with the Kachin Independence Organisation – the governing body in this region. Voluntary counselling and testing services are available, and anti-retroviral drugs provided to as many people who test positive for HIV as possible.

Staff in the clinics are trained in treating HIV and screening for other sexually transmitted infections is also available. Patients are also working to generate income, enabling them to become more self sufficient and start paying towards their treatment.

Since the start of the project in June 2007, nearly 6,000 people have received HIV/AIDS counselling and testing services.

As a result of activities that generate income for patients, such as building a rice storage facility for others to use and growing vegetables, some patients are now able to pay for their own travel costs to the health clinics, enabling project funds to go further.

This project collaborates with the maternal and child health team working on another Health Poverty Action project in Kachin, providing education and HIV testing kits to midwives as part of a ‘prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV’ programme. Midwives and trained birthing attendants counsel pregnant women in the villages and refer HIV positive patients to the clinics for treatment.

Page Last Modified: 08/07/2009