The International Organization for Migration (IOM) reported more than a 100 percent increase in HIV-AIDS deaths in Mon State in the last two months.
Responsible for supplying over 200 HIV-AIDS patients with antiretroviral (ARV) medicines, the organization told reporters that the number of new and developing cases may still be on the rise.
“At the end of June we had a meeting to review our work…this month [June] 11 of our patients died, which has never happened before,” said one IOM staff member who works in Mudon Township. In contrast, 5 patient deaths were reported in May.
Since early 2007, when IOM began its medicine distribution in Mon State, workers told IMNA that there has been a variance in whether or not there will be recorded deaths in any given month, but that this number is startlingly high.
In fact, this development occurred in light of the IOM’s doubling of the number of HIV-positive patients issued the medicine in April and June—from 100 to 200.
“Most HIV and AIDS patients need ARVs, though many don’t get enough [oftentimes none at all]. But some of them didn’t take the drugs regularly, and that’s [part of the reason] why the patient deaths have increased this month [June],” said another member of the IOM staff.
This explanation is puzzling, and some feel that amidst the rainy season and its high levels of fever, flu and diarrhea, many residents seek other available medicines, some traditional Mon plant- and root-based, to deal with immediate symptoms rather than the longer term HIV-AIDS.
The IOM operates in 6 Mon State townships—Moulmein, Thanbyuzayat, Mudon, Kyaik-ma-yaw, Bee-lin, and Ye—and sometimes distributes food along with the medicine, though they feel the inherent limitations in what they can do for such a rampant problem.
A 2008 UNAIDS/World Health Organization report on the global AIDS epidemic estimates that Burma had 240,000 people living with AIDS in 2007, noting that this number could be as high as 370,000. According to an April story by the Burmese media source Weekly Eleven Journal, only 14,000 people in Burma with HIV are receiving antiretroviral medicines.
Though the latter figure is likely more of an approximation than hard science, if it were accurate, this would indicate 226,000 Burmese residents currently live with HIV and AIDS and receive no suitable treatment.
Robust currents of sexual trafficking/sex workers and intravenous drug-use strongly contribute to these figures, along with a lack of available condoms and universal sexual education.
The International medical group Doctors Without Borders estimated that in 2007, 25,000 people died of AIDS inside Burma.
