Myanmar has been making efforts in fighting against three diseases of national concern -- HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis (TB) and malaria, scoring many achievements in the aspect over the past two decades, according to the country's Health Ministry.

Myanmar treats the three diseases as priority with the main objectives of reducing the morbidity and mortality to make them no longer a public problem and meet the Millennium Development Goals of the United Nations.

According to a latest remarks of Minister of Health Dr. Kyaw Myint, a workshop involving Myanmar, the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNAIDS stated that 338,911 people were estimated to have lived with HIV/AIDS in 2004 and the HIV prevalence in Myanmar has reduced from 1.5 percent in 2000 to 1.3 percent in 2005.

In the course of its endeavors to contain the HIV/AIDS, Myanmar initiated study on prevention and control activities on the disease in early 1985, establishing the National AIDS Committee and laying down control programs in 1989.

HIV sentinel surveillance was started in 1992, followed by prevention of mother-to-child transmission program in 2000, 100- percent condom use program in 2001 and public sector antiretroviral therapy for HIV-infected persons in 2005.

In its anti-AIDS program, Myanmar launched health education and awareness raising activities against the disease covering a total of 550,000 people with 40 million condoms distributed in 2005, up from 11 million distributed in 1999.

In its harm reduction activities for intravenous drug users, Myanmar educated 10,000 such users and distributed 1.1 million disposable syringes and needles in 2005.

In prevention of mother-to-child transmission, 130,000 pregnant women were tested for HIV during 2005. Statistics show that HIV levels of pregnant women have declined from 2.2 percent in 2000 to 1.3 percent in 2005, while that among men seeking treatment for other sexually transmitted infections from 8 percent in 2001 to 4 percent in 2005.

The country also conducted blood safety program, access for all on HIV/AIDS education, information, prevention and care activities, introducing counseling confidential testing.

According to the ministry, during 2006, a total of 2,500 AIDS patients were provided with antiretroviral treatment and 10,000 patients with home-based care, targeting to offer such treatment to 4,000 more patients over the next two years.

In its regional and international cooperation in dealing HIV/ AIDS, Myanmar stands as an active member in the ASEAN Task Force and Mekong Region Collaborative Activities with a total of 17 local, 19 international non-governmental organizations and 7 UN organizations participating in the national response against HIV/ AIDS in the country.

With regard to TB, the minister said it is estimated that about 100,000 new TB patients develop annually and about half of them are infectious cases.

The minister disclosed that Myanmar achieved 95 percent case detection rate and 84 percent treatment success rate in 2005.

With the introduction of Directly Observed Treatment Short Course (DOTS) strategy of the WHO in 1997, the DOTS treatment covered 330 townships in 2002 and extended to the whole country's 324 townships in 2003 after DOTS expansion.

As for malaria, the trend of malaria morbidity and mortality has been decreasing at present with malaria morbidity per 1,000 population reducing from 24.5 in 1988-89 to 9.3 in 2005-06, while its mortality down from 10.4 to 3.1 correspondingly.

In its prevention efforts against malaria, the government has distributed 50,000 long lasting insecticidal nets annually since 2000 to hardly accessible areas of national races with up to 400, 000 existing bed nets also impregnated with insecticide annually since 2000.

Meanwhile, as part of the special project collaborative activities dealing with the three diseases, Myanmar-China and Myanmar-Thailand cross-border activities were also conducted bilaterally since 2000.

According to the minister, after the Global Fund to Fight HIV/ AIDS, TB and Malaria terminated its grant to Myanmar in August 2005 out of political reasons, it has been replaced as a compensation by another Three Diseases (3D) Fund which involves six donor countries -- the United Kingdom, Australia, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden as well as the European Commission (EC). The six donors have pledged a grant aid of 99.5 million US dollars for five years to fight the three deadly diseases under a memorandum of understanding between Myanmar Health Ministry and the UN Office for Project Services signed in October 2006.

Myanmar is now in the process of its five-year short-term national health plan (2006-2011) which comprises 12 major programs and 66 projects.

Besides, the country, being a member state of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), is also implementing a 30-year long-term plan (Myanmar Vision 2030), under the guidelines of the ASEAN Vision 2020.

Source: Xinhua