HIV infections decrease

There is excellent news on the battle against new HIV infections in Cambodia. The infection rate decreased by half in 2006. It shows that the education programmes being run by many national and international organisation are successful. The message that condoms are essential to the prevention of new infections is getting through.

Cambodia gained 70,000 AIDS-infected people in 2006, which decreased by half from the figure in 2003, a senior health official said on Thursday.

Cambodia is very proud of this result, said Mom Bun Heng, secretary of State of the Cambodian Ministry of Health, while addressing an AIDS seminar in Phnom Penh.

The Cambodian government could now provide the delaying-life medicine for 20,000 AIDS-infected people, including 2,000 children, he said.

The government's budget for AIDS prevention in 2007 stands two times higher than 2006, while the disease is spreading from urban areas to rural areas.

Cambodia is one of the worst-hit countries in the region in the field of AIDS spread. In 1997, its infection rate ran at 3.3 percent of its population. (Source)

Advocacy work is an important part of the strategy. Educating people on the disease and its modes of transmission greatly help to reduce the discrimination that HIV positive people face every day. It is wonderful to hear such a positive story when most days all we hear is corruption this and killing that.